The case was a bail application, but the Court used it to address a problem it said it had seen in numerous matters: investigating officers taking advantage of the fact that audio-video recording of witness statements is only optional, and skipping it, allegedly so they can write the statements themselves by copying the FIR. The Court directed the Director General of Police to consider making such recording mandatory, and laid down a set of investigation guidelines. It also granted the applicant, the deceased’s mother-in-law, bail.
Prayagraj: The Allahabad High Court has directed the Director General of Police, Uttar Pradesh, to consider making it mandatory to prepare an audio-video recording of witness statements recorded under Section 180 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, observing that the current option to do so has been widely misused by investigating officers who skip the recording, allegedly to write the statements themselves by copying the FIR [Chandrakanta v. State of U.P.].
Justice Arun Kumar Singh Deshwal made the directions while granting bail to a woman accused in a dowry-death case, and issued a set of guidelines for the conduct of investigations.
How the issue arose
On an earlier direction, the investigating officer, an Assistant Commissioner of Police, appeared before the Court and admitted that he had not prepared an audio-video recording while recording the first informant’s statement under Section 180 BNSS. Confronted with two DGP circulars of 2025 and 2026 providing that such recording may be prepared, he could offer no explanation beyond an unconditional apology.
The Court observed that it had come across a number of cases in which officers, taking advantage of the option, had not prepared audio-video recordings:
“In many cases the I.Os. do not prepare the audio and video just to save themselves from the allegation that the statements of the witnesses under Section 180 BNSS are written by I.Os. themselves by copying the FIR itself.”
Under the proviso to Section 180(3) BNSS and Rule 20(1) of the BNSS Rules, 2024, an investigating officer may record a witness’s statement through audio-video electronic means. The DGP’s circulars made such recording compulsory for the statement of a rape victim but optional in other cases, a discretion the Court said had been widely misused.
The role of an investigating officer
The Court set out at length the duties of an investigating officer under the BNSS and the UP Police Regulations, emphasising that an officer is not a mere clerk for recording statements. Quoting Regulation 107, it stressed that an officer must use his own observation of the scene and the circumstances to test the evidence of witnesses, must remember that his duty is to find out the truth and not merely to obtain convictions, must not prematurely commit himself to any view for or against a person, and must give an accused the opportunity to produce defence evidence and consider it carefully.
The concern animating the judgment, the Court made clear, was that a faulty or mechanical investigation can both let the real culprit escape and cause an innocent person to be harassed, and that the initiation of criminal proceedings must not itself become a mode of harassment.
The guidelines
The Court issued a set of directions for investigating officers to follow. In substance, these require the officer to rush to the scene on receiving information of a cognizable offence and record the statements of the informant and witnesses without delay, with an audio-video recording preferably prepared through the E-Sakshya App and made available to the court on demand; to record not only the complainant and associated witnesses but also independent witnesses; and, in cases of rape or sexual assault, to record the victim’s statement at her residence or as per her convenience through a woman police officer, to arrange medical examination with consent within 24 hours, and, where the offence carries ten years’ imprisonment or more, to produce the victim before a Magistrate without delay to avoid the risk of tutoring.
Further directions dealt with collecting an accused’s phone and sending it to the forensic laboratory where an obscene video is alleged, taking the assistance of the Cyber Cell and FSL where such a video is circulated, collecting call detail records where location or conversation is relevant, and conducting test identification parades and identification of recovered property in the manner prescribed by the UP Police Regulations.
On the central point, the Court directed:
“…this Court directs the DGP, U.P. to consider, making it mandatory to prepare audio-video of statements recorded under Section 180 BNSS, so as to make the investigation more transparent and fair and same would also be helpful to the Court while deciding the bail application and other judicial proceedings.”
The DGP was further directed to apprise all investigating officers of the guidelines, and the Registrar (Compliance) to send a copy of the order to the DGP.
The bail
On the merits of the application, counsel for the applicant, the mother-in-law of the deceased, submitted that the deceased had committed suicide by hanging after a petty dispute over household issues, that the informant’s account in the FIR differed from his Section 180 statement, and that the applicant had been falsely implicated by general and vague allegations merely for being the mother-in-law, with no material to show cruelty for dowry soon before the death, as the statutory presumption of dowry death would require. It was submitted that she had no criminal history, was a woman entitled to the benefit of Section 480 BNSS, and had been in jail since May 2026. The informant and the State opposed bail but, the Court recorded, could not dispute those facts.
Taking into account that the applicant is a woman, the nature of the offence and the evidence, the overcrowding of jails and heavy pendency of trials, and the applicable Supreme Court and High Court authorities on bail, and without expressing any opinion on the merits, the Court held her entitled to bail and allowed the application on conditions. The allegations remain to be tested at trial.
Why it matters
The significant part of the order is not the bail but the diagnosis behind it. The new criminal codes were sold in large part on the promise of technology-driven, verifiable investigation, and audio-video recording of statements is one of the central tools of that promise: a recorded statement is far harder to later dispute as fabricated than a statement written up by the officer. By leaving that recording optional in most cases, the Court found, the reform has been quietly hollowed out, because the very officers who might be tempted to write a statement themselves are the ones who will decline to record it. Making the recording mandatory removes that temptation and gives courts an objective record to test at the bail and trial stages alike.
The allegation the Court voiced, that statements are sometimes written by copying the FIR, is a serious one, because a witness statement that merely parrots the FIR adds nothing and can disguise the absence of independent verification. The Court’s insistence that an officer is not a clerk but an investigator with a duty to find the truth, drawn from the old Police Regulations, is a reminder that the safeguard is not merely procedural; it goes to whether an investigation is real. That this reached the Court through a matrimonial-death case is apt, since these are precisely the cases, turning on general allegations against a family, in which the difference between a verified statement and a copied one can decide whether an innocent relative spends months in jail.
A direction to the DGP to “consider” a mandatory rule is, of course, not the rule itself; the decision rests with the police administration, and the Court has asked rather than commanded. But the guidelines the Court laid down for investigating officers, and the direction to circulate them, give the order immediate practical content, and the compliance copy sent to the DGP keeps the matter on the administration’s desk. Whether it translates into a mandatory recording regime will be seen in the DGP’s response.
Case Title: Chandrakanta v. State of U.P. [Criminal Misc. Bail Application No. 30325 of 2026]
Bench: Justice Arun Kumar Singh Deshwal, High Court of Judicature at Allahabad
Date of Order: September 15, 2026
Appearances: Advocate Himanshu Mishra for the applicant. Advocate Virendra Kumar Srivastava for the informant. AGA D.P.S. Chauhan for the State.
Status: Bail granted on conditions; allegations untested. DGP directed to consider mandatory audio-video recording under Section 180 BNSS and to circulate investigation guidelines.
This report refers to a death by suicide. If you or someone you know needs support, the Tele-MANAS national mental health helpline can be reached at 14416 or 1-800-891-4416, round the clock, in multiple languages.