The Supreme Court recently praised the ‘Kerala model’ while following up on a suo motu case on the lack of functional CCTV cameras in police stations. During the hearing of the case on April 7, a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta gave the Centre two weeks to fix the problems in fully implementing the top court’s earlier order to install CCTV cameras in all police stations across the country.
While accepting Attorney General R Venkataramani’s assurance to take substantive steps to streamline implementation of the SC order, the bench noted that Kerala, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have already established dashboard systems to remotely monitor the CCTVs from district police headquarters, with Kerala’s being the best system. It asked why other states are not learning from the Kerala model and implementing it to ensure human dignity in custodial places.
The case The Supreme Court has taken up the issue of police brutality on a number of occasions in the past and issued directions to install monitoring devices in police stations, but the implementation has been patchy.
Several suo motu cases and PILs on human rights violation, custodial torture and deaths were heard, culminating in specific directions in 2018 and 2020 to make police stations more transparent and police personnel accountable.
While ruling on the Shafhi Mohammad vs The State Of Himachal Pradesh case on 3 April, 2018, the bench of justices Rohinton Fali Nariman, Adarsh Kumar Goel highlighted the importance of electronic evidence and directed the Ministry of Home Affairs to ensure the use of video evidence to investigate and prevent crimes.
In December 2020, the Supreme Court in its landmark ruling mandated the installation of CCTVs in police stations and offices of other central investigative agencies that have the powers to arrest and interrogate accused persons.
The bench of Justices R F Nariman, K M Joseph and Aniruddha Bose pointed out that the human rights of accused individuals are protected under Article 21 of the Constitution. It directed that the CCTV cameras should cover the entry and exit points, main gates, lock-ups, corridors, lobbies, receptions, and outside lock-up rooms.
The CCTV cameras should have night vision, both audio and video recording, and storage capacity of a minimum of 12 months. In the event of custodial violence or death, the victims or their families could demand CCTV footage. However, despite these strong safeguards mandated by the top court, police authorities would cite non-functional cameras or missing footage when asked to produce video records.
Again in September 2025, following media reports of 11 custodial deaths in Rajasthan within a span of seven-eight months, the bench of justices Nath and Mehta ordered registration of a suo motu public interest litigation titled “Lack of functional CCTVs in police stations”.
In subsequent hearings in September and October 2025, the court questioned the Rajasthan government as to why there were no CCTV cameras inside the interrogation rooms in police stations. It further directed that the camera feeds go to some centralised agency, rather than letting the local police personnel handle it, to ensure there is no tampering and also to take remedial measures if a camera goes off.
The April 7 hearing, during which the ‘Kerala model’ was mentioned, was a follow-up of this PIL. Senior advocate Siddhartha Dave, assisting the court as amicus curiae, informed the court that Kerala, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh had already established dashboard systems and Uttar Pradesh is in the process of setting them up.
Observing that the police department in Kerala has come out with an effective plan and implemented the court’s orders fully, Justice Nath repeatedly asked why other states can’t replicate the Kerala model instead of trying to develop their own systems. Kerala example Kerala has around 550 police stations, including all-women, cybercrime, and coastal police stations.
According to CDIT, an autonomous organisation under the state government, a CCTV surveillance system comprising two ONVIF cameras and a monitoring system at the respective district control rooms was installed in 272 police stations in 2018, two years before the 2020 SC order.
After the 2020 fiat, the state’s police department undertook immediate action to comply with the order, by installing CCTV cameras in all police stations in phases. While the process was still on, in 2021, the DGP ordered that entire station premises – barring toilets– be brought under CCTV coverage, with cameras being installed everywhere, going beyond the SC order stipulating camera presence in key areas.
Currently, the state has a centralised dashboard system that allows senior police officers to monitor live footage through a dedicated mobile app. This is considered more advanced than most states. According to reports, each police station in Kerala has an average of 12 weather-proof CCTV cameras with night-vision and remote-monitoring capabilities, with live feeds going to a central control room. The storage capacity is 18 months. Live streams and recordings are transmitted through an optical fibre network to district control rooms, which also have the provision to back up and store recorded data.
The centralised video management software was developed and customised for Kerala police, which allows authorised police officers to view live feeds remotely through apps on mobile phones and computers.
In the larger context, the outrageous custodial deaths at Sathankulam police station in Tamil Nadu in 2020 — for which nine police personnel were awarded the death penalty by a local court on April 6 — may not have happened if there was live monitoring of CCTV feeds by district police headquarters.
In this case, the accused police personnel reportedly deleted the CCTV footage along with other evidence to hide their heinous crime.
The Supreme Court’s observation on the Kerala model stems from the fact that although most states have installed cameras, they appear to be struggling with working systems, storage, and robust centralised dashboards. Given the lack of progress in the matter despite multiple rulings, the court suggested that other states get help from Kerala to replicate the state’s tried-and-tested system. This would ensure fast implementation of the CCTV project across the country and avoids fragmented systems development that costs money and time. The SC will hear the case on April 28, by which time it expects the Centre to come with a plan to streamline implementation of its order.