The Delhi High Court on Thursday said it is “imperative” that all the 192 police stations in the Capital as well as vulnerable public areas in the city have CCTV cameras.
A Bench of Justices S. Ravindra Bhat and Sanjeev Sachdeva issued the directions to Delhi Police and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government for setting up cameras in the police stations and public areas, respectively.
Both the police and the AAP government were directed to file affidavits before November 16 indicating the timeline for installing the cameras. The court also told the police that in those stations where CCTVs were installed several years ago, the cameras be upgraded.
Taking note of recent reports of incidents of rapes of minors, the Bench told the agency to look into prevention of such crimes as well as expediting prosecution in such cases by setting up a special task force for the purpose.
December 16 case
The Bench also issued directions to expedite testing of forensic samples. It laid emphasis on older cases, especially biological samples and those that may be corrupted by passage of time, being taken up first for testing. The directions and observations of the court came while hearing a PIL initiated by it in 2012 after the December 16, 2012 gangrape of a young woman in a moving bus.