In a bid to make jails and police stations “violence-free”, the Supreme Court has been urged to direct installation of CCTV cameras in all prisons and lock-ups in a phased manner across the country within a year.
The proposal has come from the amicus curiae assisting the court in order to curb instances of custodial death and torture reported across all police stations and jails. The court is monitoring cases from all over the country in order to ensure that the set of 11 guidelines in the DK Basu case of 1997 are followed by police in treating arrested persons and those in custody are not subjected to human rights violations.
Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who is the amicus in the case before the apex court, suggested that installation of CCTV cameras must be followed with regular maintenance, sending feed recording to a control centre managed by the State Human Rights Commission, and surprise visits by registered NGOs and civil groups, including media to audit its performance.
This recommendation formed part of a broad set of suggestions presented by the Amicus Curiae, who provided possible solutions to the court to bring down the rising graph of crime committed by police in custody. As per data available with National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) during 2010-11, custody deaths in jails (intimated and complained) totalled to 1,584 which jumped to 1,842 last year. As regards, police custody deaths for the corresponding periods, the figure stood at 311 at the end of 2011, which climbed to 434 by 2012-end and stands at 341 this year.
“The main reason why torture continues to be practiced on such a wide scale throughout India is that police feel confident that they will not be held accountable, even if they kill the victim and even if the truth is revealed,” stated the note of Amicus, drawn by advocate Pranab Kumar Mullick.
Considering the extent of coverage — across lakhs of police stations and cells in each jail — phase-wise implementation was proposed. The first phase would cover semi-urban, rural and remote areas followed by remaining areas in the second phase. This was so proposed as the Amicus said, “The poor, deprived classes, women and political activists are the worst victims of police brutality.”
In addition, the note proposed mandatory direction to set up State Human Rights Commissions, fill up vacant posts there, and set up Human Rights Courts among other steps to tackle police atrocities.