Allahabad High Court Bats For Installation Of CCTV Cameras In All Sections Of HC For Transparency In Court's Working

In an attempt to "control and monitor" the activities of various sections of the High Court with a view to having better court management as well as transparency in its working, the Allahabad High Court last week directed the Registrar General of the Court to propose the idea of installing CCTV in all the sections of the Courtroom to the Acting Chief Justice.

The Bench of Justice Vivek Agarwal directed the Registrar General to place the proposal before the Acting Chief Justice within 7 days for obtaining consent of Hon'ble the Acting Chief Justice in regard to the installation of CCTV cameras in all sections of the High Court.

The Court issued such a direction after summoning Joint Registrar (Stamp Reporting, Criminal) to explain as to how he, in a matter, only made a note in regard to three defects namely:-

• Adhar linked mobile number of the deponent is not given
• Witness signs required on Vakalatnama and
• the proper affidavit is not given.

The Court noted that the Stamp Report did not make a note that the applicant had not filed a typed copy of any of the documents and the documents had been filed by the applicant as Annexures were not legible.

To this, the Joint Registrar submitted that mistake had been made in his section. 

Observing that the mistake was not a small one, the Court said that it had resulted in the wastage of precious time of this Court.

"It appears that it prima facie indicative of a nexus between the parties and Stamp Reporter who are deliberately ignoring such major irregularities/defects," added the Court.

Therefore, issuing the above directions, on the request of the Joint Registrar (Stamp Reporting, Criminal), the counsel for the applicant was granted 10 days time to produce typed copy of documents.

Case title - Prabodha Nand Giri And 3 Others v. State of U.P. and Another

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