The Delhi High Court has directed the concerned land owning and civic agencies to grant permission for digging up stretches in order to install 6,630 CCTV cameras across the National Capital.
The direction came after a suo-motu petition was initiated by the High Court in 2012 after the December 16 Nirbhaya gangrape case. The victim had later succumbed to her injuries.
A division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad was hearing the petition submitted by Additional Standing Counsel for the Delhi Government, Anuj Aggarwal. After hearing the counsel, the bench directed the agencies to expedite the granting of permission for digging a 1,200 km stretch to lay cables for the installation of CCTV cameras in the National Capital.
The bench also allowed the impleadment of Bharat Electronic Limited (BEL) as a party in the matter, which was submitted by the counsel. BEL has been hired for installing the CCTV cameras around the city.
In previous hearings, around 44 vulnerable areas in Delhi were identified for installing the CCTV cameras and initially a period of three months was granted to begin the installation process so as to enable the court to monitor the progress. The matter is now listed for February 7, 2023.
The High Court in July 2019 had asked all the stakeholders including the state government and police, to prepare an action plan for the National Capital to make “Delhi crime-free for women”. “If in other parts of this Country, women can travel freely any time in day or night, we see no reason as to why the capital of this country, which does not lack resources of any nature, should not be crime free for women and as to why women should not find it safe to travel even during day, much less, at night,” the Court had observed in its order.
