NEW DELHI: The Indian government on Monday introduced in the Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament) a bill seeking to provide security cover of the special protection group (SPG) to Sonia Gandhi and her two children while the opposition took exception to the proposed legislation on ground that such a statue would make some citizens more equal than others
Replying to the opposition the home minister S.B.Chavan told the house that the Govt decided to bring forth the bill as the members of the family of assassinated former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi faced a “serious and grave threat” to their lives. This was based on the threat perception assessment done by his ministry he said.
The government would certainly consider bringing about any amendment that might be required in future but the bill did not violate article 14 of the constitution (equality before law) in view of the threat perception to Gandhi’s family Chavan said.
He assured the house that he would see how best the phrase in the bill could be modified as Jaswant Singh of the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) took exception to the use of certain expressions in the bill.
Since SPG cover under the Present law was only meant for the prime minister and his immediate family an amendment to the SPG act was considered necessary to provide security to members of the immediate family of assassinated prime ministers and assassinated former prime ministers.
According to the financial memorandum attached to the bill the expenditure incurred for the additional personnel equipment and facilities for the SPG cover to Gandhi’s family would be Rs 45 million per year
Article extracted from this publication >> August 30, 1991
