Custodial Deaths: Supreme Court registers suo motu PIL over lack of functional CCTV in police stations

The Supreme Court on Thursday registered a case suo motu over lack of functional CCTV cameras in police stations..A Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta initiated the case based on a report in Dainik Bhaskar newspaper which said that there have been 11 deaths in the last 7 to 8 months in police custody."Based on Dainik Bhaskar, we are directing for a suo motu public interest litigation titled 'lack of functional CCTVs in police stations', as it has been reported that there are 11 death in last 7-8 month in year 2025 in police custody," the Court said in its order..Installation of CCTVs in police stations was made mandatory by the top court itself in 2020 in a landmark judgment delivered by a Bench of Justices Rohinton Fali Nariman, KM Joseph and Aniruddha Bose.In that verdict, the Court had ordered all States and Union Territories (UTs) to install CCTV with night vision cameras in each and every police station across the country.The top court had also directed the Central government to install CCTV cameras at the offices of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), National Investigation Agency (NIA), Enforcement Directorate (ED), Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Department of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) and any other central agency office where interrogation of people is carried out..CCTV in Police Stations: Ten takeaways from the Supreme Court judgment.The apex court in that judgment also mandated that CCTV systems so installed "must be equipped with night vision and must necessarily consist of audio as well as video footage."In areas in which there is either no electricity and/or internet, it shall be the duty of the States/UTs to provide the same as expeditiously as possible using any mode of providing electricity, including solar/wind power, the Court had added.Whenever there is an incident of serious injury or custodial death in a police station, a person can complain about the same to Human Rights Courts which can then summon the CCTV footage for safe-keeping. Such footage shall be made available to the victims in the event of violation of her human rights, the Court had said..However, despite these directions, police have often hidden behind the excuse of missing footage or non-functional CCTV cameras when asked to produce footage. .[Read Live Coverage]