Bengaluru: Karnataka high court has directed the police department to ensure CCTV cameras installed in police stations work nonstop without a minute’s downtime and to mandatorily live-track the health and functioning of CCTV systems across the state.Justice Suraj Govindaraj issued the interim directions on Aug 13, while hearing a petition filed by V Shailaja, who claimed Whitefield police station could not give CCTV footage of the station of Sept 4, 2024 as there was power outage and there was no power back-up for 11 months.The court ordered an inquiry to establish whether there was, indeed, a power interruption at the station between 11am and 2.30pm on that date.The court directed the additional chief secretary and principal secretary (home), and the director general and inspector general of police to instruct the computer wing to design and implement the audit system. At its core will be a centralised dashboard displaying every station and status of each CCTV camera, recorder, UPS and connected equipment. The system must generate automatic alerts if equipment fails.Shailaja alleged she was harassed and illegally detained at the station. She had sought CCTV footage to support her claims. After police authorities rejected her request, Karnataka Information Commission also dismissed it in Nov 2025, prompting her to approach the high court.The judge questioned how a UPS could remain defective for nearly 11 months without corrective action. “The station house officer could not have remained a passive spectator twiddling his thumbs,” he said, adding supervisory officers, too, could not escape responsibility.Referring to the Supreme Court’s directions in Shafhi Mohammad vs State of Himachal Pradesh, the judge said CCTV systems were installed in police stations to monitor their activities, particularly in view of complaints of atrocities. “The very purpose of installing CCTV cameras in a police station is defeated if the system is allowed to remain non-functional during power outages,” the court observed.+++BOX-Detailed inquiry and technical audit of cameras at police stations, condition and whether they operate continuously-Monitor UPS battery health, charging status and backup time-Breakdowns must have a digital trail; unresolved issues should be flagged to senior officers-System should generate daily, weekly and monthly reports on CCTV uptime, failures and repair times-Police to ensure system can verify whether CCTV cameras have recorded continuously for 24 hours and whether footage has been preserved for legally prescribed period-Police computer wing to prepare SOP on health checks, footage preservation, cloud backups
