Noting that there is an “imperative necessity to step up security” at shelter homes in Uttar Pradesh, the Allahabad High Court has directed the State government to install CCTV cameras at all such institutions, both government-run and accredited private ones.
Hearing the Deoria shelter home case suo motu, the court also ordered the constitution of a three-four member committee of judicial officers in each district by the district judges to “periodically inspect all shelter homes” in the State. The committees would submit periodic reports to the court.
“Had there been a periodic and effective inspection of the premises, perhaps the sad incidents which came to occur in the [Deoria] shelter home would not have come to pass,” a Bench of Chief Justice Dilip B. Bhosale and Justice Yashwant Varma said in an order dated August 27 but uploaded on Thursday.
The committees would also include one woman member. The court directed the Additional Advocate General of the State to apprise it of the government’s response on the direction to install CCTV cameras in all shelter homes.
The HC also expressed displeasure with the Additional Chief Secretary for submitting an affidavit that was “conspicuously silent and vague” on what further action the State proposed to take on the matters raised by the court in earlier orders.