Ahmedbad

The Gujarat government today tendered unconditional apology to the High Court today for inordinate delay in installation of CCTV cameras in all the police stations of the state and sought one month time to equip the remaining ones.

Hearing a contempt petition filed by an NGO which had earlier filed a PIL in this regard, the division bench of Justice Anant Dave and Justice G B Shah asked the government’s counsel to explain the reason behind the delay.

Tendering unconditional apology to the court, the government counsel cited technical reasons like change in the company to which the job was handed. He requested that one month time should be given for the completion of the related process which the hounorable court granted.

The court also asked the government to ensure installation of CCTV in the Ahmedabad crime branch police station premises also.

Notably the court had in the past taken strong action against 2 IPS officers in this regard.

The petitioners counsel Ms Parul Joshi requested the court to initiate strict action for non-compliance of its several orders in the past.

The High Court had in 2012 asked the government to equip all police stations with CCTV cameras to curb custodial violence. During the course of hearing it has fixed several deadlines in this regard. By now out of over 550 police stations only a little over 200 have been installed with CCTV cameras.

NGO Jagega Gujarat through a PIL had demanded replicating the Rajkot model in other districts because all police stations in the district were equipped with CCTV cameras.

– DeshGujarat