Video clip not always useful to ascertain person’s absence: Punjab and Haryana High Court

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 29

In a significant judgment on placing reliance on video clips to refute the presence of an accused at the time of the occurrence of an offence, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that the CCTV footage or recording might be useful for ascertaining the presence of a person at the scene, but not his absence. The ocular version of the eyewitnesses, under the circumstances, could be of use to prove the presence of the accused.

Ocular version of eyewitness handy

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The ocular version of the eyewitnesses could be of use to prove the presence of the accused to re-enact crime scene. Justice Gurvinder Singh Gill, Punjab & Haryana HC

Taking up a bunch of two petitions filed in connection with a murder case, Justice Gurvinder Singh Gill of the High Court made it clear that the non-appearance of an accused in the video recording might be of no significance. Referring to a statement of a witness in the case in hand, Justice Gill observed it showed that she was video recording an alleged occurrence on her mobile phone, but was threatened by an accused not to go ahead. Apprehending the worse, the witness went inside a room along with her mobile phone.

Justice Gill asserted the fact that the video recording did not show the presence of the accused might be insignificant, keeping in view the consistent statements of the residents of the locality and the fact that recording could not “always completely capture the entire area where some activities/action is going on as some persons/articles/portion would always be out of frame”.

Justice Gill added: “While it may be said that the CCTV footage/video recording can be used for positive evidence for ascertaining the presence of a person at the place of incident, video recording/CCTV footage may not always be useful for negative evidence ie for discounting the presence of a person at the place of incident.”

Elaborating on the reasons, Justice Gill asserted that the person at a given point of time may be out of the camera frame. Besides, some part of the occurrence may have taken place a little out of the camera frame. “In such cases, it is the ocular version of the eye-witnesses which would came in handy to re-enact the occurrence,” Justice Gill added.