Reported by: Mrinal Banik

Agartala: The Tripura High Court has directed the state authorities to ensure strict compliance with Supreme Court guidelines on CCTV surveillance in police stations and made the Officer-in-Charge (OC) of each station responsible for the functioning, maintenance and recording of the systems.

A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao and Justice Biswajit Palit issued the direction while disposing of a criminal writ petition filed by Ratna Roy. The judgment was pronounced on Thursday.

The court said the OC must be responsible for maintaining CCTV data, ensuring its backup and getting technical faults rectified.

The Bench also directed that whenever CCTV cameras at a police station remain non-functional, the OC must inform the District Level Oversight Committee (DLOC) about arrests and interrogations conducted during the period and forward the relevant records to it.

The DLOC, headed by the Divisional Commissioner, must then immediately approach the State Level Oversight Committee (SLOC) for the repair or replacement of the equipment, the court directed.

The High Court relied on the Supreme Court’s 2020 judgment in Paramvir Singh Saini v Baljit Singh and Others, which prescribed CCTV coverage of police stations and assigned responsibility for the systems to the Station House Officer.

The directions came during proceedings on Roy’s petition concerning an incident on April 4 and 5, 2026, in which her son Saikat Saha was allegedly taken to East Agartala Police Station and subjected to assault, humiliation and torture.

The High Court had earlier ordered the seizure of CCTV footage and constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to examine the allegations.

According to the judgment, the SIT report prima facie supported the allegations against Rabindranath Ghosh and Joy Debnath.

Their services appeared to have been terminated subsequently, and a charge sheet was filed against them, while police personnel posted at the station were suspended and departmental proceedings initiated.

The court also noted the importance of CCTV footage in its proceedings, observing that such footage had helped it intervene in the petitioner’s case.

It referred to another case involving an alleged assault at a police station where footage was unavailable because the CCTV system was reportedly not functioning at the relevant time.

The writ petition was disposed of with the fresh directions and reiteration of the Supreme Court’s CCTV guidelines.