'If Nothing To Hide, Entire CCTV Should've Been Produced': NIA Court Orders Probe Against Jail Officials Over Alleged Ill-Treatment Of Inmate

A Special Court for NIA cases in Ernakulam has issued an order directing probe into alleged ill-treatment of an accused lodged in a High Security prison in Thrissur.The order was passed by Sri. P.K. Mohandas, Judge for NIA Cases, while considering multiple petitions filed by an accused who has alleged mistreatment during custody. The applications sought judicial intervention and action against jail authorities for alleged mistreatment during custody.According to the petitions, the accused claimed that on June 5, 2023, at about 9:30 a.m, prison officials led by the Joint Superintendent entered his cell while he was eating, disrupted his belongings, and allegedly kicked his food. He further alleged that subsequent complaints submitted to prison authorities on June 5, 7, and 9 were either ignored or not forwarded to the court as required.The Court has called for explanation from the Superintendent of Prison based on the petitions submitted. The Superintendent denied the incident alleged in the petitions and have also produced CCTV footage of the cell in which the petitioner was detained.The Court has earlier directed the matter to be placed before the District Jail Committee for further action. This order was challenged by the petitioner before the High Court, stating that the hard disk of the CCTV footage of the cell on the day of the incident must be produced. The High Court thus directed the production of hard disks of the CCTV footage before the Special Court and has also directed to send them for forensic examination. The Director, Forensic Science Laboratory, examined both the hard disk and pendrive and submitted in his report that on examination of the CCTV footage, the recordings between 09.10.48 hrs to 09.17:55 hrs are not available in the pen drive submitted for examination. The report also stated that the hard disk and pen drive contain identical footage. The petitioner contended that the report does not confirm whether the pen drive contains the complete footage of the incident. It was also contended that approximately 9 minutes video is missing from the 20 minutes footage, indicating lack of continuity and the findings in the report, and the findings in the report that the hard disk and pen drive contain identical footage is false. The Court thus examined the CCTV footage and observed: “A careful examination of the videos mentioned above shows that the visuals of the CCTV from 09.10.50 hrs to 09:17:54 hrs is not available in the same. The time stamp on the videos and the time of last modification shows that these two videos were copied from the main hard disk at different points of times. The visuals of the period from 09.10.50 hrs to 09:17:54 hrs is not seen copied. The explanation offered by the Superintendent is that the CCTV system was not working property and there was no tampering in the visuals produced before the court. The original hard disk is not made available for examination and it is reported that due to repeated overwriting, it will be impossible to retrieve the visuals.” The Court further noted that the video was extracted as two files at different times. “If there was nothing to hide, the jail authorities could have produced the entire recording in a single file. The two files were produced in the pendrive before the court. The report of the FSL shows that the video files contained in the hard disk and the pendrive are one and the same. So, at the time of copying the files to the hard disk itself, the visuals of the disputed incident were not copied by the jail authorities.” Court noted. The Court thus added that the failure on the part of the jail authorities in preserving and producing the CCTV footage of the relevant period creates serious doubts and hence a detailed enquiry was necessary to find out the actual incident which led to the complaint by the petitioner. The Court thus directed the Director General of Prisons and Correctional Services to take steps to conduct a detailed enquiry by an officer subordinate to him. Case Title: Rajan C.G v Union of India Represented by NIACase No: Crl.M.P 297/ 2023, 320/ 2023& 321/ 2023 in SC02/2021/NIAKOCCounsel for the Petitioner: Thishar Nirmal SarathyCounsel for Respondent: V.N.Anil Kumar(Spl. PP), Sreenath .S (PP)Click Here To Read/ Download Order

'If Nothing To Hide, Entire CCTV Should've Been Produced': NIA Court Orders Probe Against Jail Officials Over Alleged Ill-Treatment Of Inmate

Anamika MJ

Tags