The Allahabad High Court has held that the failure of police authorities to produce operational CCTV footage or mandatory General Diary (GD) entries creates a legal presumption of unlawful detention under Section 119 (Illustration [g]) of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA).

The Bench directed the State to pay compensation to four citizens—including a two-and-a-half-year-old child—who were illegally detained for days without production before a Magistrate, further ordering the State to recover the compensation amount directly from the salary of the responsible police officials after a departmental inquiry and record the Court's severe displeasure in their service books.

The Division Bench of Justice Atul Sreedharan and Justice Divesh Chandra Samant observed, "In a case where the CCTV footage of the station is not available for the period when the corpus alleges he was illegally detained, and there is no documentation to support the stand of the police that he was released from the station on a particular date and time then, s. 119(illustration [g]) of the BSA which reads "evidence which could be and is not produced would, if produced, be unfavourable to the person who withholds it" would squarely apply on the police and the court would be justified in presuming that case of the petitioner is correct. Thus, in the present case, this Court reasonably infers are correct that the petitioner no.1 was unlawfully kept in prison for two days and petitioner nos. 2 to 4 were kept in prison for ten days."

Advocate Archit Kumar Srivastava appeared for the Petitioners

An FIR was registered at Police Station Gauri Bazar under murder charges against six named individuals who were not the petitioners in this case.

On the night of April 13 and 14, 2026, the police unlawfully entered the houses of the accused person’s relatives, including petitioner No. 2 and another female relative, and took them into custody without following legal procedure. The police also took into custody petitioner No. 3 and her minor daughter aged two and a half years (petitioner No. 4).

The police kept petitioners 2 to 4 in illegal custody at the police station for nearly ten days without producing them before a Magistrate, releasing them only on April 23, 2026.

Meanwhile, on April 18, 2026, petitioner No. 1 was also unlawfully detained for over 48 hours, physically assaulted, and released on April 20, 2026, after money was extorted from him.

The petitioners approached the court seeking compensation when the habeas corpus petition was filed by the petitioners seeking compensation. The police station authority asserted that the CCTV cameras were dysfunctional during the period of detention, but failed to produce any mandatory General Diary entries or proper records to substantiate the release or absence of the petitioners.

An official departmental inquiry subsequently found the station house officer guilty of dereliction of duty regarding missing CCTV footage and failure to report system faults.

The Court observed that, as per the judgment passed by the Court in Paramvir Singh Saini Vs. Baljit Singh [2020], it is mandatory to install cameras in the police stations, and those cameras must be operational at all times. 

The Court noted that the CCTVs in the police stations provide evidence that can protect the police from allegations of excesses and deviations from the law and, at the same time, it is also evidence to condemn their actions where the police resort to extra-judicial methods, transgressing the law and trampling on the constitutional rights of fellow citizens.

"Where, the CCTV system fails, the police must resort to the old system by which every suspect brought in for interrogation into the station must be documented by recording his presence in the GD which includes the date and time at which the person enters the station nd thereafter, there must be a GD entry relating to the date and time at which the person leaves the station. Abundans Cautela, the police is well advised to take a receipt from the person so called in for interrogation or his next of kin stating that the person is at liberty to leave the station and an endorsement by the person that he is at liberty to move out of the station giving the date and time at which he has been set free. As regards a person who is arrested in an offence, his memo of arrest would adequately disclose his arrest", the Court observed.

The Court held that Respondent/Police Officer was responsible for detaining the Petitioners illegally and directed the State to pay compensation to each of the Petitioners. The Court asked the State to recover this amount from the salary of those responsible after an enquiry, and also ensure that the displeasure voiced by the Court regarding his official conduct is recorded in his service book.

Accordingly, the writ petition was disposed of.

Cause Title: Mahendra Gaur and Ors. v. State of U.P. and Ors. [Neutral Citation: 2026:AHC:188075-DB]

Appearances:

Petitioners: Advocates Archit Kumar Srivastava and Preete Chaudhary

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