NEW DELHI: To strengthen rule of law by digitally recording and preserving evidence, the Supreme Court has directed the Centre to employ videography in probe, particularly for crime investigations.
A bench comprising Justices A K Goel and R F Nariman directed the Centre to appoint trained videographers in a period of three months in every district, while approving the plan of action prepared by a committee, constituted by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on use of videography in police investigation. The court also directed police academy to arrange special training classes for the same.
“Every state will have a nodal officer who will oversee the training of these videographers and an expert team will have officers from investigative agencies including CBI, NIA, state police along with a legal expert to collect the evidence as per the guidelines so that the same can be produced in the court during the trial,” the order reads.
According to the court, the digital photographs and videos should be recorded without delay and must be shared across various police stations in a real time to facilitate faster and sharper investigation.
The court also pointed out that recording of crime scene with higher resolution photography will come handy for forensic analysis. The bench said: “New techniques and devices have evidentiary advantages, subject to the safeguards to be adopted. Such techniques and devices are the order of the day. Technology is a great tool in investigation. With videography, crucial evidence can be captured and presented in a credible manner.”
In addition, to check on the human rights violation especially in prisons, the court has asked Centre to prepare a mechanism within three months. It said: “With a view to check human rights abuse CCTV cameras are installed in all police stations as well as in prisons. There is need for a further direction that in every state an oversight mechanism be created whereby an independent committee can study the CCTV camera footages and periodically publish report of its observations.”
It was in the course of hearing a criminal case that the court had in March last year noted several shortcomings in the manner in which crime scenes were being investigated by the police. The bench had then decided to examine the issue in detail about how to make use of technology in improving the quality of investigation and evidence.