Night vision cameras and high mast lights, men patrolling the gates day and night. No, it’s not the latest edition of Hunger Games, but could be the future of Tis Hazari court complex soon enough.

Shocked by the brutal murder of Rajiv Sharma, a lawyer who had been practicing out of the Capital’s oldest courts for the past decade, the THC Bar Association called for a meeting with Delhi High Court administration heads last week.

A day after Sharma’s bashed-in body was found near his chambers inside the court’s complex — where incidentally there is a police post not more than a 100 feet away — Judge Kailash Gambhir, DCP (North) Madhur Verma, JCP- Delhi Sandeep Goel met THC Bar chief Sanjeev Nasiar.

During the meeting, the lawyers put forward their list of grievances and demands. And the list was extensive and high-tech.

They wanted night vision CCTVs, high intensity security lights, increased policing of the complex.

But that’s not all…

The bar association demanded all kiosks and restaurants running within the court complex must be shut down by 7pm.

They also asked that all staff to be sent home before nightfall, and have especially said that the people living within the court complex must be evicted with immediate effect.

“If such measures were taken earlier, the Friday incident could have been avoided,” Nasair said.

The association also complained about the CCTV cameras in THC. There are over 170 of them, they said, but most don’t work and are for show only. (And you were worried you’d get caught smoking that sly cigarette on the corner stairs near the prosecution department… silly you!)

Cops were directed by Justice Gambhir to assess the actual number of working CCTV cameras, and told to submit their report within the week, Barfly has heard.

Last week, a member of the court staff found Sharma’s body in the corridor of the Tis Hazari building. Several people from a near-by dhaba were arrested and one confessed to hitting the 40-year-old lawyer with a iron object after they got into a fight. Cops said the tussle broke out over his 'food order’.   

The dhaba was sealed right after the body was found. It hasn’t been re-opened since.

A CCTV camera did not cover the area where cops said the lawyer was attacked.

Delhi Barfly writes of the comings, goings and other gossip clogging up Delhi’s court system.

Photo by oogiboig