GUWAHATI, Oct 21 - Leader of Opposition in the Assam Legislative Assembly Debabrata Saikia has demanded a judicial enquiry into the security lapse that took place during the recent visit of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi to the Kamakhya temple.
�The unfortunate incident involving the Hon�ble Chief Justice of India at the Kamakhya Mandir on October 17 has once again exposed the desperate attempt by the State government to please political personalities belonging to the ruling dispensation by using the State government machinery and this sort of misplaced priorities have resulted in a junior State Service officer and a police officer being made scapegoats and placed under suspension,� Saikia said in a statement today.
He said that in terms of protocol, the Chief Justice has precedence over any political personalities and as per norms, a Commissioner-level officer should have been deputed to coordinate the visit of Gogoi and ensure due courtesy to him.
�This was not done because taking the cue from the State government, the officers were busy bending over backwards to please their political masters at the Centre,� Saikia said. The prestige of the people of Assam has been dented by the fact that in his home state, the Hon�ble Chief Justice of India was kept waiting outside the temple while political personalities were being entertained inside it, he said adding the security and protocol lapse merely highlighted the larger malaise of breakdown of the administrative machinery in Assam.
�An enquiry by a sitting or retired High Court judge must be conducted to fix responsibility and the arbitrary way of assigning protocol duties must be ended forthwith. Moreover, the practice of making scapegoats of junior State-level officers must be done away with and the penalised junior officers should be immediately reinstated,� he said.
