NEW DELHI — The Centre has told the Supreme Court it is seeking approval for an umbrella police modernisation scheme covering the entire force across India, in a case that began with a much narrower question: why CCTV cameras in police stations do not work.
Additional Solicitor General Rajkumar Bhaskar Thakare informed a bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta on August 5 that the proposal went to the Department of Expenditure on July 8 and is with the Finance Ministry for in-principle approval.
What was told to the court
The submission had two parts. The first is the proposed umbrella scheme, which would replace the current patchwork of police modernisation funding with a single comprehensive framework covering forces nationwide.
The second is a stopgap. The existing Assistance to States and Union Territories for Modernization of Police scheme, known as ASUMP, has been extended to March 31, 2027. That keeps central money flowing to states while the larger scheme waits on the Finance Ministry.
The court directed the Centre to place the proposed scheme on record, gave it two weeks to file additional documents, and listed the matter for September 1.
How a CCTV case became a police reform case
The hearing arose from a batch of petitions including a suo motu case the Supreme Court began over the absence of functioning CCTV cameras in police stations.
That question is narrow on its face and consequential underneath. Cameras in police stations exist to create a record of what happens in custody, which is the single most contested space in Indian criminal procedure. A camera that is installed but not working provides no record while creating the appearance of one.
The court has been explicit about that distinction. In January it emphasised that mere installation of CCTVs in police stations is not enough and that they should also work perfectly.
Thakare set out the government’s position on the wider scheme in plain terms. “An umbrella scheme for modernization of the entire police force is under consideration and has been forwarded to the Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance, for in-principle approval,” he told the bench.
On the interim arrangement he confirmed that the existing scheme “has been extended until 31 March 2027 pending approval and rollout of the proposed comprehensive scheme,” which keeps state funding intact while the larger framework is decided.
In April it escalated, directing the personal presence of the Union Home Secretary to assist in framing directions on monitoring. It also asked why other states and union territories were not adopting the Kerala model of live monitoring, in which feeds are watched in real time rather than stored for later retrieval.
The distinction between recording and monitoring is the heart of it. A stored recording can be lost, overwritten or found to have gaps. A live feed watched elsewhere is much harder to make disappear.
Where implementation stands
The picture has improved. On July 22 the court observed that CCTV installation had taken a positive turn, with substantial progress reported by Senior Advocate Siddhartha Dave, who is assisting as amicus curiae.
Dave has told the bench in earlier hearings that most states are moving in the right direction, with significant progress in equipping police stations.
The Kerala question
The court’s April intervention contained the sharpest instruction of the case. It asked why states and union territories were not adopting what it called the Kerala model of live monitoring.
Kerala routes police station camera feeds to a centralised facility watched in real time, rather than storing footage locally for retrieval when someone asks for it. The difference is not technical sophistication. It is who holds the recording, and whether the people being recorded also control the archive.
That the court had to summon the Union Home Secretary in person to advance the point indicates how slowly the direction had travelled. A bench does not require a serving secretary’s attendance over a matter it believes is progressing.
The court has consistently tracked two things rather than one: timely installation, and maintenance of cameras already installed. The second is where these schemes historically fail. Hardware gets bought in a funding cycle and stops working in the one after, because maintenance is an operating cost and modernisation grants are capital.
The funding extension to March 2027 addresses precisely that gap for CCTV specifically.
What an umbrella scheme would change
Police modernisation in India has run through ASUMP and its predecessors for decades, with the Centre contributing a share and states matching it. The structure produces uneven outcomes because police is a state subject, and states differ enormously in how much they can or will spend.
A single umbrella scheme would centralise the design while leaving implementation with states. In principle that raises the floor: a state with weak fiscal capacity gets access to a framework it could not have built.
In practice it depends entirely on the money, which is the question sitting with the Department of Expenditure. A comprehensive scheme announced without a comprehensive allocation reproduces the existing problem under a new name.
The court’s decision to demand the scheme on record rather than accept the assurance is the significant procedural move. It converts a policy intention into a document the bench can hold the government to on September 1.
What it means for India
The constitutional stake is larger than equipment. Policing is where the state meets the citizen most directly, and custodial accountability is where the gap between constitutional rights and daily practice is widest.
India records custodial deaths every year, and the standard evidentiary problem in such cases is the absence of a reliable record of what happened inside the station. That is what the CCTV directions were designed to address, and why the court has stayed with a seemingly technical question for years.
The expansion from cameras to a full modernisation scheme is a reasonable move if it delivers working equipment and trained personnel. It carries a familiar risk: a broad scheme under Finance Ministry consideration is easier to announce than a narrow directive the court can enforce, and the specific obligation about live monitoring could get absorbed into a general commitment to modernise.
Why the court stayed with it
The CCTV directions trace back to a 2020 Supreme Court judgment requiring cameras with night vision and audio recording in every police station, covering entry points, lock-ups, corridors, lobbies and the station house officer’s room, with footage preserved long enough for a complainant to act on it.
Compliance was poor for years. States cited funding, then procurement, then maintenance. The court’s response has been to keep the matter alive rather than dispose of it with a direction, which is unusual and deliberate: a disposed case requires fresh litigation to revive, while a monitored one requires the government to keep returning.
That is why an argument about cameras has lasted long enough to produce a national police modernisation scheme. The bench did not set out to design police policy. It set out to make a 2020 order work, and found that the order could not work without the funding structure that is now before the Finance Ministry.
September 1 is when the bench sees the document.
