# Stalled CCTV cameras in Karnataka police stations: High Court orders full audit 2026-08-24T05:45:45+00:00 | Governance | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 1 independent outlet The Karnataka High Court on August 13 directed the state Home Department to conduct a detailed statewide audit of CCTV systems and power backup in all police stations. Justice Suraj Govindaraj said the government’s argument that cameras at a Bengaluru police station were non-functional due to power failure made a "mockery" of the Supreme Court’s 2020 order to install 24x7 working cameras. The court also ordered designing of a state-level IT system to monitor CCTV functionality in real time. The directive came in a case where a woman alleged a police officer used third-degree methods on her at Whitefield police station on September 4, 2024. The state admitted the UPS at that station had been non-functional for nearly 1.5 years. The court observed that if the CCTV could not record due to power loss, the very purpose of surveillance, transparency and evidence preservation was defeated. The next hearing is expected to set a compliance deadline. ## Indian Opinion Analysis The Supreme Court’s 2020 order to install CCTV cameras in all police stations followed the 2019 encounter of a rape-accused in Telangana, where footage was missing. The Karnataka High Court’s audit directive, backed by a state-level IT monitoring system, could expose similar failures across all 1,000-plus police stations in Karnataka. The Rs 100-200 crore question is whether the state will allocate funds to fix UPS backups or merely file a compliance report. The next hearing on August 24 may set a deadline for the audit, deciding if more courts across India mandate such real-time surveillance. Watch the Home Secretary’s response: if the report is delayed, contempt proceedings could follow against senior officers. ## Coverage - barandbench.com Led with court's 'mockery' remark and detailed judicial criticism, omitting government's counter-arguments beyond the roundabout UPS claim. This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above. Tags: Justice Suraj Govindaraj, Karnataka High Court, Karnataka home department, Supreme Court of India, Whitefield Police Station Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/stalled-cctv-cameras-in-karnataka-police-stations-high-court-orders-full-audit/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/stalled-cctv-cameras-in-karnataka-police-stations-high-court-orders-full-audit/#story-in-brief Review state: restored archive article, accurate at time of publication, not offered to search indexes. How this brief was made: an AI model read the report linked above and wrote this summary and analysis, which were published automatically. Published briefs are sampled every hour by an automated quality check; the editor verifies its findings and approves corrections, and corrected briefs carry a dated correction line. We do no original reporting. Methodology: https://indianopinion.org/ai-use-policy/