Chennai: The Director General of Police (DGP) has informed the Madras high court that instructions have been issued to all the superintendents of police and commissioners of police across the state, to take appropriate action on a plea from Aircel, which has filed an insolvency petition and whose network connection came to a standstill on February 21 due to lack of signal, seeking police protection in its office premises and showrooms.
Additional government pleader D. Raja produced a copy of the letter issued by the DGP before Justice M.S. Ramesh when the petition filed by Aircel Limited, which sought a direction to the DGP and CoP to provide protection to its office premises and showrooms in 53 places across the state, came up for hearing on Wednesday.
Stating that police protection was not provided to Aircel, despite complaints and representations, Badrinath, counsel for the company insisted on issuing a direction to the police to provide protection immediately.
Recording the submissions, the judge said Additional government pleader D. Raja on instructions from the Respondent (DGP) and by placing reliance on the letter dated March 1, 2018, of DGP, submitted that all the Superintendents of Police of various districts of Tamil Nadu as well as the Commissioners of Police of all the cities have been requested to take appropriate action on petitioner’s request for police protection.
The DGP and CoP shall take necessary precaution to avoid any untoward incidents and prevent the law and order problem in view of the intensity of the event that is anticipated, the judge added and posted to March 21, for reporting compliance.
Police protection was particularly required in six of the petitioner’s premises located in Chennai, Coimbatore, Trichy, Madurai and Salem as these premises contain the main switching centres which operate and connects the signal towers of the petitioner company throughout the state. If these switching centres were damaged, the public would be put to serious hardship since there would be no cellular connectivity to any of the customers across the state, which would further aggravate the present situation, the company added.
