Context
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There has been disquiet among MPs ever since the Parliament complex was brought under a new security regime and the Parliament Security Service (PSS) was replaced by CISF, a Central Armed Police Force under the Union Home Ministry.
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The office of the Joint Secretary (Security), who heads the PSS, issued an order saying that a letter had been received from the DIG, CISF, that certain duties and facilities “may be handed over to the CISF”
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About Parliament Security Service
- Security responsibilities in the complex were with the PSS and the almost-100-year-old Watch and Ward committee.
- The Watch and Ward Committee was set up on the initiative of Vithalbhai Patel, who was then president (equivalent to today’s Speaker) of the Central Legislative Assembly, the lower house of legislature of British India.
Source: Hindustan Times - This followed the incident of April 8, 1929, when revolutionaries Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt threw two feeble bombs and pamphlets in the Central Assembly and raised slogans “to make the deaf hear”.
- The committee named this organisation ‘Watch and Ward’. The name continued until April 15, 2009, when it was changed to Parliament Security Service.
What was the main job of the PSS?
- Provide and maintain Pro-active, Preventive and Protective Security measures within the Parliament House Complex, for safeguarding Members of Parliament, visitors and employees.
- The approach of the PSS “revolves around the principles of Access Control based on proper authorization, verification, identification and authentication of human and material resources entering the Parliament House Complex with the help of modern security gadgets”.
- PSS personnel are specially trained to identify MPs and other VIPs.
- Article 98 of the Constitution provides for a separate Secretariat of Parliament.
- Parliament security is a part of the Lok Sabha Secretariat and its job is to protect the interest of MPs and facilitate things for them. This cannot be done by any outside security agency that has no experience in dealing with Members of Parliament.
- the PSS “is under the control of the Speaker, and if at all there arises a need to change the composition of the security system, it has to be done under the direction of the Speaker, not by any Ministry”.
Source: IE
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