Sharp judicial displeasure over the Centre’s handling of police station surveillance compliance brought the Union home secretary into focus on Tuesday, as the Supreme Court questioned why an under secretary had been deputed to a high-level meeting on installing and monitoring CCTV systems across police stations nationwide. The bench, however, exempted Home Secretary Govind Mohan from appearing again after Attorney General R Venkataramani assured the court that unresolved issues would be addressed within two weeks.
Hearing a batch of matters that includes a suo motu case on non-functional CCTV systems in police stations, a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta made clear that the Union government’s representation at the deliberations had fallen short of the seriousness the issue demanded. Justice Nath pointedly asked whether it “look[ed] nice” that an under secretary had represented the Union at meetings convened after court directions, signalling that the bench viewed the move as a casual institutional response to a matter tied to custodial safeguards and accountability.
Venkataramani told the court that he was taking stock of the matter and would hold a series of meetings with the amicus curiae and other officials, including the Home Secretary, to settle pending questions over installation, functionality and oversight. Recording that assurance, the court said the issues should be sorted out within a fortnight and listed the matter for April 28. It also said the personal appearance of the home secretary would not be required again unless specifically ordered.
The episode stemmed from a broader compliance review that has exposed uneven implementation across states and Union Territories. The amicus assisting the court had reported that the Centre’s participation in earlier meetings was ineffective, noting that it did not attend one meeting and later sent an under secretary who was unable to provide substantive responses to queries. That account appears to have prompted the bench on April 6 to direct Govind Mohan’s presence at the following hearing. Official Ministry of Home Affairs records identify Mohan as the serving Home Secretary.
At the heart of the litigation is a long-running judicial effort to create a reliable video record inside police facilities, where allegations of custodial violence and procedural abuse have repeatedly surfaced. The Supreme Court’s earlier directions required CCTV cameras to cover key parts of every police station, including entry and exit points, lock-ups, corridors, reception areas and other operational spaces, along with night vision capability, audio-video recording and data preservation for at least one year. Those requirements were meant not as a technological add-on, but as a structural check on coercive practices and evidentiary gaps.
The present phase of the case shows the court moving beyond installation figures towards questions of standardisation and live monitoring. On February 26, the bench asked the Centre and other stakeholders to deliberate on a centralised dashboard and a common implementation framework. During this week’s hearing, the judges referred to Kerala’s software model and suggested that states should not have to separately build parallel systems if an existing platform could be adopted more widely. According to submissions noted in court, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have already set up dashboard systems, while other states are still working towards that stage.
That line of judicial thinking reflects a shift from hardware compliance to operational accountability. Cameras that are installed but switched off, badly maintained, poorly positioned or disconnected from any central alert mechanism do little to answer the court’s concerns. The bench has been examining whether footage reaches an independent or centralised monitoring structure, whether outages are flagged automatically, and whether audit systems exist to ensure that equipment is functional and tamper-resistant. Those concerns have grown sharper since the court in September 2025 initiated a fresh suo motu process over reports of non-functional systems and custodial deaths.
Venkataramani also reminded the court that policing is constitutionally a state subject, indicating that any nationwide solution will require coordination rather than a simple command chain from New Delhi. That federal dimension is central to the dispute. The Centre is being pressed to facilitate technical standards and a workable monitoring architecture, while states and Union Territories remain responsible for police administration on the ground. The court’s remarks on Tuesday suggested it expects the Union to play a more active convening role, especially where standard-setting, software harmonisation and compliance review are concerned.
