Calcutta HC Directs Expeditious Video Linking Of Prisons, Police Station & Courts [Read Order]

The bench of Justice Suvra Ghosh and Justice Joymalya Bagchi remarked that the process was crucial to ensure seamless and quick production of undertrials via video linkage, in order to avoid systemic delays arising out of infrastructural deficiencies like absence of vehicle and staff for physical production of undertrials.

The bench was informed that so far 18 correctional homes had been linked to 19 district courts in the State while the district court in Andaman & Nicobar Islands was connected to its sole correctional home.

Calling it a tardy progress, the bench asked the Director General of Police (Correctional Homes), West Bengal, who is in actual control of the project, to submit an affidavit in the matter. The bench also directed the Registrar General of the high court to disclose the extent of video linkage penetrability in the judiciary on a court to court basis.

The court noted that even though video conferencing equipments were available in the Video Conferencing Room in district court precincts, no such facility was available in the court rooms where remand cases are heard. Remarking that absence of such facilities will hinder proper implementation of the project, the court observed,

"In the absence of such facility, production of undertrials via video linkage remains a theoretical exercise on pen and paper. A single point video conferencing facility available in a video conference room is of little help to the remand courts who have to deal with a large number of remand cases on a daily basis for remanding undertrial prisoners in addition to dealing with undertrials who are on bail in the same or other cases. In order to ensure that such facility is not a mere illusion but an effective tool for ensuring speedy justice through prompt production of undertrials via video linkage, it is necessary that the linkage be extended to the court rooms of learned Chief Judicial Magistrates, Additional Chief Judicial Magistrates and Special Courts and not restricted to the video conferencing room only."

With these observations, the court directed the Registrar General and the State Government to impress on the service provider and other authorities involved in the matter to take immediate steps for implementation and operationalisation of the video linkage project at the earliest.

The matter has now been posted for April 2, 2020.

The Petitioner was represented by Senior Advocate Sekhar Basu and Advocate Subrata Guha Biswas; the Registrar General of the High Court by Advocate Saikat Banerjee; and the State by PP Saswata Gopal Mukherjee and Advocates Ranabir Ray Chowdhury and Mainak Gupta.

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