The Supreme Court has directed the Tihar Jail authorities to explain how contraband reached prisoners, including death row convicts, and provide detailed information on CCTV coverage both inside and outside the prison walls.
The order concerns an incident on March 14, when three condemned men were found in an intoxicated condition inside their cells. The official version is that the authorities had to use force to bring them to their senses. However, one of the convicts showed the effects of brutality as he could hardly walk. The jail authorities claim there was no CCTV footage of the incident or the medical treatment the men received after they were subdued.
In fact, the Jail Superintendent informed a Bench led by Justice U.U. Lalit that camera footage is stored only for four days before it is wiped clean.
The court responded by ordering Raj Kumar, the Jail Superintendent, to file an affidavit by April, “disclosing all the steps undertaken by him in connection with the incident that occurred on March 14”.
“The affidavit shall disclose where exactly the CCTV cameras have been installed and whether the control room and the boundary wall of the jail are covered by CCTV cameras or not,” the court said in a recent order.
The Bench said the jail superintendent should, in the affidavit, also disclose “under what circumstances, materials, such as, tobacco pouches or any other contraband/such things find their way inside the jail premises and what kind of preventive and other measures are being taken by the jail authorities”.
The affidavit should reveal the make of CCTV cameras installed “which according to Mr. Raj Kumar does not have life greater than four days for CCTV footage; so also about the time lines adhered to and required for installing CCTV cameras and the budgetary allocation made for such installations”.
“With regard to the budgetary allocation and the kind of cameras installed in the jail premises, an affidavit shall also be filed by the official concerned from the Home Ministry of the respondent-State with explanation as to why the life of CCTV footages is confined only to four days,” the court ordered.
The apex court referred to how its judgment in 2020 had made it clear that “jail authorities are obliged to install CCTV cameras at various places in the jail”.
