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Apprise court on when all police posts will have CCTV coverage: HC to Haryana
The additional chief secretary (home) has been directed to file an affidavit as to by when all entry and exit points of all police posts will be covered by CCTV footage. This court will not expect a long time frame, keeping in view the fact that, to repeat, illegal detention of any person hits at a citizens’ basic fundamental right, the court added.
The high court has asked Haryana government to apprise the court by when police posts across the state will be covered under closed-circuit television (CCTV) coverage.
The additional chief secretary (home) has been directed to file an affidavit as to by when all entry and exit points of all police posts will be covered by CCTV footage. This court will not expect a long time frame, keeping in view the fact that, to repeat, illegal detention of any person hits at a citizens’ basic fundamental right, the court added.
The bench of justice Amol Rattan Singh also directed the additional chief secretary to ensure that instructions be issued that upon any warrant officer being appointed by the court to visit a police station/police post/CIA premises etc., a DDR entry, whether written in a register or allegedly entered online, will be immediately handed over to the visiting warrant officer, failing which, naturally, adverse inference can be taken by the court, that actually no such DDR entry at the relevant time was actually made.
The directions were issued in a habeas corpus matter from a Panchkula resident who had alleged that his son was illegally picked up by the police and kept in detention for almost four days even as he was a minor. During the hearing, it had come to light that the police station in question, Sector-14 in Panchkula, had CCTVs but not the police post under this police station. It had also come before court that when court-appointed warrant officer visited the police, the minor boy was found in detention and the warrant officer was not provided the DDR entry of boy’s arrest, which, police claimed, that was made on the day, the warrant officer visited the police station.
The court expressed its surprise that the Sector 16 police post was not equipped with CCTV cameras, despite an, affidavit given in a petition about 2 to 3 years ago, that all police stations/CIA staff in the state had been equipped with the CCTV camaras.
“Obviously this court not having issued a specific direction that even police posts be so equipped, was taken unnecessary advantage of by the officers of the state, to not install such camaras at police posts, which are equally important as regards determining as to whether somebody had been illegally detained in a police post or not, with that issue ‘hitting’ at the very root of a persons’ right to liberty as enshrined under Article 21 of the Constitution of India,” the court observed.
