By: Express News ServiceNew Delhi | September 27, 2025 04:18 AM IST 2 min readThe court registered a suo motu petition following a news report in a Hindi daily on September 4. The report said as many as 11 lives were lost in police custody in the state in the first eight months of 2025.The Supreme Court, which took suo motu cognizance of the lack of functional CCTVs in police stations on September 4, Friday posed a series of queries to the Rajasthan government, asking about the number of cameras installed in each police station and the frequency at which maintenance activity is carried out.A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta asked the state to inform about “specifications of cameras like resolution, night vision, field of view, audio capture, and tamper detection; storage mechanism followed for the storage of video data, including the period for which the data is preserved.” The bench also called for an “escalation process in case there is malfunction in the camera” as well as a “process of redressal with placement details”.The bench sought to know the status of Internet connectivity at police stations and integration with a centralised server/control room, if any, software configuration and creation of a centralised dashboard. It underscored the importance of standard operating procedures for officers’ training regarding access, review and retention of footage, including protocols for usage, escalation and tampering.“Information shall be provided in respect of training of the officers in respect of data protection laws and judicial admissibility of the video footage,” the top court said. The court said the response to the queries should be filed within two weeks, supported by an affidavit of the state Director General of Police.The bench will hear the matter again on October 14.The court registered a suo motu petition following a news report in a Hindi daily on September 4. The report said as many as 11 lives were lost in police custody in the state in the first eight months of 2025.© The Indian Express Pvt LtdTags:supreme court