A recent notification mandating that video conferencing rooms within police stations be used as designated places for recording statements, sparked an uproar within the Delhi Bar. The strong opposition led to its suspension and a clarification that all police officials and personnel would continue to appear physically before the courts for depositions and evidence.
While this resolution appears to have restored order to the conduct of evidence of police officials, a wider and more troubling issue in the video conferencing (VC) regime remains overlooked. The appointment of non-judicial coordinators to record testimonies of testifying witnesses at designated locations under the Delhi High Court Rules, 2025 is a practice that strikes at the heart of the principles of fair trial enshrined in Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution.
The Delhi High Court notified the Delhi High Court Rules, 2025, repealing The High Court of Delhi Rules, 2021 to formalise and enable use of electronic communication and other audio-video electronic means for the purpose of conducting trial, inquiry and proceedings under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS) and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (BSA). The Rules provide for the appointment of non–judicial coordinators at designated places for the purpose of recording testimonies.
The introduction of audio-video electronic means under the BNSS does not and cannot be read as dispensing with judicial supervision in the recording of evidence. The BNSS has retained the provisions corresponding to Sections 284–286 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), which provide a detailed statutory framework for recording evidence when the attendance of a witness cannot reasonably be procured. Section 319 BNSS states that dispensing with the physical attendance of a witness and adopting alternate modes of recording is permissible when the attendance of such witness cannot be procured without an unreasonable amount of delay, expense or inconvenience.
In such cases, the court or magistrate may issue a commission for the examination of the witness. Most importantly, Section 320 BNSS expressly provides that any such commission is to be directed to a judicial authority, specifically the Chief Judicial Magistrate within whose jurisdiction the witness is found. This statutory scheme underscores that even where physical presence is dispensed with, the recording of testimony must remain under judicial supervision and control.
Contrary to these principles, Rule 9 of The Delhi High Court Rules, 2025 provides for the appointment of “Coordinators” both at the court point and at the designated remote point from where a person is to be examined. However, it is significant that such coordinators are not judicial officers, but persons nominated either by the High Court, the Principal District Judge or, in some cases, by the concerned court itself. The appointment of the such persons as “coordinators” is constitutionally and legally problematic, inasmuch as the role assigned to the coordinator is not merely administrative, but involves substantive judicial functions.
The coordinator is tasked with ensuring that no unauthorised recording device is used, no unauthorised person enters the designated place when the video conference is in progress, and that the person being examined is not prompted, tutored, coaxed, induced or coerced in any manner, and does not refer to any document, script or device without the permission of the court. Moreover, the coordinator is required to be privy to the documents to be referred by the witness which shall be supplied by the courts to the coordinators. These functions go to the very root of the voluntariness of a statement, which is a matter reserved exclusively to judicial determination.
In fact, under Section 164(4) CrPC/183(4) BNSS, while recording confessions, the law mandates that the magistrate must record the statement in the prescribed manner and append a memorandum certifying that the accused was informed of his right not to confess, that the confession was voluntary and that it was read over and admitted to be correct. Similarly, Section 280/315 CrPC & BNSS requires the presiding judge or magistrate, when recording the evidence of a witness, to also note down such remarks as may be material regarding the demeanour of the witness during examination. These safeguards exist precisely because the assessment of voluntariness, credibility and fairness is a judicial function, one that cannot be delegated to an executive or departmental official.
By vesting coordinators - who are not judicial functionaries with these responsibilities - the Rules effectively dispense with the statutory safeguards and dilute judicial supervision, thereby undermining the constitutional guarantee of a fair trial under Article 21.
Furthermore, the very appointment of such persons as coordinators is inherently problematic, since in several categories of designated places, the coordinator is, by definition, a person occupying a dominating and supervisory position over the witness. This renders illusory the safeguard of voluntariness and fairness of testimony.
For instance: When witnesses are housed in jails, child care institutions, women’s facilities, or any other institutional facilities, the Rules designate the Superintendent or Officer-in-Charge as coordinator. These officials exercise daily authority and control over the inmates, creating an environment of dependence, fear and bias. Expecting prisoners, children, or women in such vulnerable settings to depose freely about abuse, neglect or mistreatment is unrealistic. In each of these instances, the coordinator is not a neutral or independent authority, but one whose very relationship with the witness is hierarchical and controlling. The presence of these authorities inherently chills speech, fosters coercion and fatally undermines the voluntariness of testimony.
The Rules go even further in their vagueness and impropriety by providing that “in case of any other location”, the coordinator to be appointed shall be any public servant or public official of the concerned department nominated by the court, to ensure that proceedings are conducted in a fair, impartial and independent manner and according to the directions of the Court. On the face of it, this provision itself contemplates that the coordinator is to ensure the fairness, impartiality and independence of trial proceedings - a role which is quintessentially and exclusively a judicial function, not one to be delegated to an executive or departmental officer.
Moreover, the Rules lay down no eligibility criteria or qualification prerequisites for appointment as coordinator. This becomes problematic especially during depositions of public officials employed with government authorities which fall under the category of “in case of any other location” in the Rules. The coordinator appointed in case of any other location may well be a junior officer in rank to the deposing witness, raising a serious question: how can such a person be expected to supervise and certify the voluntariness of testimony given by his superior?
The Rules thus create an inherently flawed and impractical framework where the guarantee of fair trial is entrusted not to an independent judicial authority but to departmental functionaries, undermining both the perception and reality of impartiality.
The legislative intent and judicial interpretation are both unambiguous: the use of audio-video electronic means is a procedural facilitation, but the supervisory authority continues to rest exclusively with judicial officers. In sum, BNSS embraces technology only within the boundaries of judicial control; it has not created a regime of unsupervised or departmentalised evidence recording. Unfortunately, the Delhi High Court Rules appear to carve out precisely such a regime.
Namisha Jain is a practicing advocate at the Delhi High Court.