Discuss the significance of the Police Modernisation Mission in the context of persistent gaps in implementation of the Supreme Court's directions on CCTV surveillance in police stations.

In Paramvir Singh Saini vs Baljit Singh (2021), the Supreme Court mandated CCTV coverage of lock-ups, corridors and officers' rooms in every police station, with long footage retention, as an Article 21 safeguard against custodial violence [1]. Five years on, the Centre's ₹24,000-crore Police Modernisation Mission, spread over five years, has been placed before the Court as the funding answer to compliance that remains incomplete [2].

The persisting implementation gap

• The Court took suo motu cognisance in 2025 after reports of non-functional cameras in Udaipur police stations — showing that installation, not merely absence, is the problem [3].
• Compliance has required repeated affidavits from States and UTs, illustrating continuing mandamus rather than one-time direction [1].
• Police being a State List subject, the Centre can fund and standardise but cannot compel station-level upkeep [4].

Significance of the Mission

• Converts a judicial mandate into a budgeted, time-bound commitment, addressing the recurring plea of resource constraint by States.
• Covers both State police and Central Armed Police Forces, with emphasis on greater use of technology for internal security [2].
• Builds on the MHA's Modernisation of Police Forces umbrella scheme (₹26,275 crore, 2021-26), which already funds secure police stations, communication equipment and a ₹2,080.50-crore forensic capacities sub-scheme [4][5].
• Reframes modernisation as an accountability tool — surveillance, forensics and evidence integrity — not merely equipment procurement.

Caveats

• MPF-type schemes have historically suffered underutilisation and slow State absorption; outlay is not outcome.
• Cameras deliver rights protection only with maintenance, power backup, storage and public access to grievance mechanisms.

The Mission is significant less as fresh money than as institutional acknowledgement that constitutional safeguards need infrastructure to become real. Its success will depend on cooperative federalism — States matching central funds, third-party audits of camera functionality, and outcome-linked disbursal. Anchored thus, police modernisation can advance the Court's larger promise of humane, transparent policing under Article 21.