Institute of Legal and Management Studies

In a suo motu case concerning lack of functional CCTV cameras in police stations, the Supreme Court today called for the Rajasthan government's response on 12 questions including whether regular audits are carried out to ensure the functioning of CCTVs.

The Court further asked the government to state the period for which CCTV footage of police stations is preserved. It also questioned whether there is provision for surprise inspections and forensic validation of tamper proofing.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta passed the order, noting that efforts to procure the CCTV footage from the concerned police stations of Rajasthan remained unsuccessful as the information was not supplied on "frivolous grounds".

The bench further observed that, "the non-functioning of CCTV cameras/non-preservation of video recording and its data is in breach of the directions issued by this Court in the case of Paramvir Singh Saini v. Baljit Singh...".

The 12 questions posed to Rajasthan government are as follows:-

"(i) Number of police stations in each district;

(ii) Number of cameras installed in each police station with placement details;

(iii) Specifications of cameras like resolution, night vision, field of view, audio capture, and tamper detection;

(iv) Storage mechanism followed for the storage of video data, including the period for which the data is preserved;

(v) Frequency at which maintenance activity is carried out;

(vi) Escalation process in case there is some malfunction in the camera and process of redressal for the same;

(vii) Status of internet connectivity at the police stations and its integration with a centralized server/control room, if any;

(viii) Software configuration and creation of centralized dashboard;

(ix) Creation of SOPs for the training of officers regarding access, review and retention of video footage and regarding protocols for usage, escalation and tamper proof protocols. Furthermore, information shall be provided in respect of training of the officers in respect of data protection laws and judicial admissibility of the video footage;

(x) Whether any regular audit is conducted to check the functioning of the installed cameras. If so, the detailed report with complete statistics be placed on record;

(xi) Whether any audit of logs and integrity of footage is carried out?

(xii) Whether there is any provision for surprise inspections and forensic validation of tamper proofing?"

The Director General of Police, Rajasthan shall file an affidavit in support of the abv effect within 2 weeks.

To recap, on September 4, the Court called for registration of the present suo motu case in public interest. A bench of Justices Nath and Mehta took the action based on a report published by Dainik Bhaskar, as per which around 11 people died in police custody in the last seven to eight months this year.

In December 2020, the Court had mandated in Paramvir Singh Saini v. Baljit Singh that all State and Union Territory Governments should ensure that CCTV cameras are installed in each and every police station functioning under them. However, compliance remained patchy, with many cameras either not installed or lying defunct.

When the present case was taken up, Senior Advocate Siddharth Dave informed the Court that while some states have complied with the directions, others have not. He highlighted that the Union of India, which has premier investigating agencies under it like the ED, NIA and CBI, have also not complied with the Court's orders. The senior counsel further acknowledged the issue of CCTV cameras being switched off manually in police stations, and submitted that monitoring would not only address issue of custodial deaths, but also custodial torture and abuse.

Hearing him, Justice Mehta remarked, "Issue is of oversight. Today there may be compliance affidavit, tomorrow officers may switch off cameras...we were thinking of a control room in which there is no human intervention...any camera goes off, there is a flag...there has to be inspection of police station also by independent agency...we can think of involving IIT to provide mechanism so that CCTV footage is monitored without human intervention".

While reserving the orders, the bench expressed that it was considering independent monitoring of the CCTV cameras in police stations without any human intervention, as even if CCTVs are installed in compliance with the Court's earlier directions, the same can be switched off by officials.

Case Title: IN RE LACK OF FUNCTIONAL CCTVS IN POLICE STATIONS Versus, SMW(C) No. 7/2025

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