Publicity of accused persons by police undermines the presumption of innocence. Examine the legal gaps and suggest a framework.

The presumption of innocence and the prosecution's burden to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt are foundational to Indian criminal justice [1]. Yet handcuffed arrestees are routinely photographed and circulated online, often before production before a magistrate — an informal punishment inflicted without trial. A pending Supreme Court PIL for a media-briefing protocol makes the legal vacuum urgent.

Why publicity is defended

• Investigative utility: a thinly stretched police force converts the public into thousands of searchers at near-zero cost; wanted-person notices have recovered missing children and traced fugitives after trails went cold.
• Legal analogy: BNSS 2023, s.84 (earlier CrPC s.82) lets a court proclaim an absconder and publish it in newspapers [2] — but only for one who has fled, and by judicial order, not police choice.

The legal gaps

• No enabling statute: no law either permits or prohibits release of an accused's photograph; practice rests on habit and colonial-era precedent.
• Power to collect ≠ power to publish: the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022, which repealed the 1920 Act, widely expanded collection — biometrics, iris and retina scans, biological samples — even by a Head Constable, yet says nothing about disclosure to media [3].
• Asymmetric safeguards: records held for 75 years in the NCRB database must be destroyed on final acquittal [3], but a photo already on WhatsApp is irretrievable — the lesser harm is regulated, the greater one is not.
• No reasoned order: the Law Commission (1980) urged magistrates to record reasons; neither the 1920 nor the 2022 Act adopted it [3].
• Scale of harm: in 2023, 11,84,027 persons were acquitted against 11,37,639 convicted in IPC cases, out of 30,03,024 arrested [4] — wrongful exposure is the norm, not the exception.
• Weak enforcement: MHA's Advisory on Media Policy of Police (1 April 2010) binds no State, police being a State subject [5].

Suggested framework: a necessity test — release only where the investigation demonstrably gains — backed by a written, recorded reason before disclosure; central rules under the 2022 Act to bind all States uniformly; conversion of the 2010 advisory into binding standing orders with departmental accountability; and mandatory correction on acquittal. Regulated, reasoned publicity serves both effective investigation and the dignity guaranteed under Article 21.