Govt response sought on plea to preserve CCTV footage from police stations in State

A division bench comprising Justice M Sathyanarayanan and Justice R Hemalatha on recording the petitioner’s submission wherein reference was made to Sathankulam custodial death case, where the authorities were unable to recover CCTV footage from inside the police station, which may have proved crucial to the probe, ordered notice to the State returnable by November 7.

The petitioner K Nizamudeen, a High Court advocate, had submitted in his public interest litigation that the State has so far failed to evolve any statutory framework or SOP to maintain CCTV footage inside police stations against its manipulation or doctoring.

The petitioner submitted that the solemn objective to prevent police excesses (in Sathankulam case) got defeated due to lack of a statutory framework to protect and preserve the footage against manipulation and its future usage for forensic investigation.

The plea also sought to enable the public to obtain such footage either under the RTI Act or under any special rules prescribed for use in legal proceedings.

The petitioner also submitted that despite an undertaking given by the State to the High Court in another PIL for gradual installation of CCTV cameras in all police stations across the State, a query under the Right to Information Act revealed that no such installation took place in 2015 and 2016.