Behind Closed Doors

“Injustice anywhere is a great

threat to justice everywhere.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

Last week, a Supreme Court hall was plunged into silence as a bench read out its stern observations on the state of police activities in Rajasthan. The affidavit the Supreme Court bench was hearing was troubling; the highest court lamented that not a single interrogation room in the state’s police stations had a functioning CCTV camera. “There is no camera in the interrogation room, (which is) the main place where a camera has to be,” the bench noted grimly. The special bench was responding to reports of 11 deaths in police custody in Rajasthan.

It is a grim statistic. And one that, in the absence of presentable surveillance, is reduced to mere numbers rather than hard evidence of what truly transpired inside the police station(s).

The comments are not the first time the SC has spoken on this. The court’s patience has been tested since 2018, when it directed all Indian states and Union Territories to install CCTV cameras with night vision and audio recording facilities in police stations, interrogation rooms and lock-ups. It was a clear, unequivocal order grounded in Article 21 of the Constitution—the ‘Right to Life and Personal Liberty’.

Yet, years later, the very rooms where confessions are recorded and lives are sometimes lost remain cloaked in silence.

Seven-Year Defiance

The Supreme Court’s 2018 order was not a suggestion, but a mandate. The order covered police and investigation agencies across India, including Central Bureau of Investigation, National Investigation Agency, Enforcement Directorate, Narcotics Control Bureau and others. The order sought installation of CCTVs with audio coverage at entry and exit points, corridors, reception areas, lock-ups and interrogation rooms (the heart of custodial interactions). The reasoning was humane and pragmatic—if the presence of a camera could deter abuse, if recordings could later establish accountability, then both the innocent and accused would be protected. Instead of progress, though, India’s enforcement bodies have displayed years of bureaucratic inertia, administrative excuses and near-criminal evasion.

Despite repeated judicial nudges, states have filed non-committal affidavits or ignored the timelines blatantly. Even after the SC ordered states to allocate funds and file action-taken reports, compliance remained low. “Nothing substantial has been done,” the SC noted in a follow-up hearing in 2021.

Today, in 2025, the words remain just as true. Just as numbing.

Lives Lost in Custody

The absence of CCTVs in police stations is not a technical glitch, but a humanitarian crisis. Every year, detainees die in custody, many under suspicious conditions. According to the National Human Rights Commission, over 700 custodial deaths were reported between 2017 and 2022, though activists claim the actual figure is higher. A shocking case is the Sathankulam tragedy in Tamil Nadu. In June 2020, a father and son—Jeyaraj and Benniks—were picked up for allegedly violating COVID-19 lockdown rules. They were reportedly tortured and died in police custody. There was no CCTV footage, no visual record of their ordeal, only the silence of walls and blood on the floor.

“The lack of CCTVs is not an accident, it is a design that allows impunity,” activist Vrinda Grover says. “With no evidence, there is no accountability. With no accountability, there is no justice.” The court’s 2020 order, directing that footage be stored for 18 months, was supposed to ensure that incidents of torture, extortion or coercion could be objectively probed. Yet, without installation of the equipment, retention is meaningless.

System Resists Clarity

Refusal to comply with the SC’s orders reveals a deep malaise—a system uneasy with transparency. Installing CCTVs means creating a permanent, impartial witness; videos cannot be intimidated, bribed or silenced. It means putting an end to the shadowy leeway that custodial environments have long exploited. For years, activists and reformers have claimed the policing system is outdated. The 1861 Police Act continues to cast a colonial shadow over law enforcement, prioritizing control over service and fear over trust. Surveillance in interrogation rooms threatens that very inherited power dynamic.

“Technology is not the problem. The problem is will,” Prakash Singh, former National Police Academy director and a champion of police reforms, says. “When the Supreme Court orders something and that order is ignored, it reflects a culture of impunity. There is no political incentive to change that.”

The irony is acidic. India has invested billions in digital governance, surveillance tech for public spaces, AI-driven facial recognition at airports and Wi-Fi connectivity in smart cities. Yet, on installing a simple camera in an interrogation room, authorities plead lack of funds, red tape or ‘logistical’ challenges. In its 2020 order, the Court even instructed the creation of independent monitoring committees and human rights courts to ensure oversight. These panels, if they had been formed, could have become watchdogs by now. Instead, they remain paper tigers, much like the never-installed cameras.

Public Must Not Look Away

The lack of cameras inside interrogation rooms is not a technical lapse, it is a societal failure. Every citizen who walks past a police station should be concerned about what happens inside. Today, it is the nameless poor, the marginalized, the voiceless. Tomorrow, it could be you. In the words of Justice DY Chandrachud in 2020: “CCTVs in police stations are not an intrusion, they are a shield... a shield for the innocent. They are a deterrent for the guilty, a guardian of the rule of law.”

Yet, civil society remains indifferent. The establishment sees no gain in reforming custodial practices and leadership ends up resisting what it perceives as an erosion of authority. This triangle of apathy, neglect and resistance keeps the system dark; concrete rooms swallowing lives without a trace.

The UN Human Rights Council often reminds member states that the right against torture is absolute and non-derogable. India is a signatory to the ‘United Nations Convention Against Torture’, but it is yet to ratify it. This means while India weighs the pros and cons of ratifying the UN agreement formally, its enforcement set-ups continue to operate in legal and moral darkness.

Breaching the Opaque

The Rajasthan episode is not an aberration; it is a mirror. When a state government lawyer walked into the Supreme Court in 2025 and admitted that (its) interrogation rooms had no cameras, it was a sign of something far more dangerous than negligence. It signalled a quiet, systemic agreement to let opacity rule. Ironically, there’s no dearth of solutions, especially when many states have allocated the requisite funding. The technology needed is inexpensive and readily available. Yet, implementation deadlines have repeatedly been missed, exposing a reluctance to embrace transparency.

One day soon, the Supreme Court may again observe and pass another order. But orders cannot install cameras, only the authorities can. India is the world’s largest democracy. Justice cannot be allowed to depend on events taking place behind closed doors. Every unrecorded interrogation is an opportunity for abuse and every missing CCTV a potential accomplice. The installation of surveillance inside police lock-ups is not just a matter of compliance with a court order, it is a moral imperative as well.

End of day, until people demand to see everything clearly and without compromise, those holding the keys to interrogation rooms will remain unaccountable. The question, then, is not whether India will install cameras, it is whether Indians will demand their right to ‘see’.

The writer can be reached on narayanrajeev2006@gmail.com. Views expressed are personal. The writer is a veteran journalist and communications specialist