Delhi High Court Dismisses PIL Seeking Public Access To City's CCTV Footage

The Delhi High Court recently dismissed a PIL seeking to make Delhi's CCTV footage public.

The plea filed by Save India Foundation sought directions to the Delhi Police to upload and share the CCTV feed from the cameras installed by the Delhi Government on a public domain, in a time bound manner.

Refusing to pass any such directions, the division bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao said that monitoring the city's CCTV footage falls within policing duty and can't be done by the general public. It observed,

“We are afraid we cannot grant such a prayer for the reason that installation of CCTV cameras at conspicuous places is done by the police authorities under their normal duties of policing. If we permit an individual or even an organisation to be shared such CCTV feed, we would be permitting the individual or the organisation to enter into the arena which is the preserve of the Police.”

The Court further noted that no infringement of any right, whether statutory, constitutional or otherwise, was pleaded in the petition.

As such, it dismissed the plea.

Appearance: Mr. Umesh Chandra Sharma, Mr. M.K. Gaur, Ms. Manvi Rajvanshy, Mr. Mohit Kumar, Mr. Neeraj Chauhan, Ms. Tripta Choudhary and Ms. Shivani, Advocates for Petitioner; Mr. Sameer Vashisht, Standing Counsel (Civil) with Mr. Manashwy Jha and Ms. Harshita Nathrani, Advocates for R-1 & 3/GNCTD. Mr. Chetan Sharma, ASG with Mr. Ripudaman Bhardwaj, CGSC, Mr. Amit Gupta, Mr. Shubham Sharma, Mr. Vikram Aditya Singh, Mr. Naman, Mr. Yashwardhan Sharma, Mr. Kushagra Kumar and Mr. Amit Kumar Rana, Advocates for Delhi Police.

Case title: Save India Foundation v. GNCTD

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Del) 1356

Case no.: W.P.(C) 15836/2025

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