LUCKNOW, March 14 -- The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has granted three weeks to the state counsel to study the issue of non-functional CCTV cameras in police stations across Uttar Pradesh. The order was passed by a division bench of Justice Abdul Moin and Justice Babita Rani on March 12 while hearing a petition filed by Shyam Sundar alias Shyam Sundar Agrahari, who has sought quashing of an FIR registered against him at Motigarpur police station in Sultanpur on September 6, 2025, under Section 109 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). During the hearing, the petitioner's counsel filed a rejoinder affidavit in response to the personal affidavit submitted earlier by the state's chief secretary. The affidavit had been filed on February 23 in compliance with a court order directing an inquiry into repeated instances of non-functional CCTV cameras in police stations. The court directed that the matter be listed again after three weeks. Earlier, on February 4, 2026, the court had asked the chief secretary to personally inquire into the issue, observing that repeated instances of non-functional cameras could not be treated as mere coincidence. The bench had remarked that while one such instance could be an accident, repeated occurrences suggested a pattern, particularly when courts called for CCTV footage. The petitioner alleged that he was falsely implicated in the case and sought verification of the facts through CCTV footage. His counsel told the court that the 56-year-old petitioner, who is physically disabled, was taken from his residence by police without warrant or notice and subjected to custodial assault in September 2025. Earlier, the high court had directed the Sultanpur superintendent of police and other officials to file personal affidavits and produce CCTV footage from the petitioner's residence and the police station, along with call detail records. However, authorities later informed the court that the cameras at the relevant locations had been non-functional since June 1, though no corresponding entry in the general diary was produced to support the claim. The court had also noted that entries regarding repairs were made only after its order seeking the footage....