Policing the line between publicity and justice

1. At a Glance

• Police publication of photographs of accused or arrested persons has no single enabling law. It rests on a patchwork of colonial-era regulations, an identification statute and general criminal procedure. [1]
• The tension is between two things. Publicity helps solve crimes, recover missing children and trace fugitives. It also risks the presumption of innocence and the accused's dignity before trial. [1][5]
• The article argues the justification is strong but the legal architecture is weak. Before releasing a photograph, police must ask whether the investigation requires it. [1]
• UPSC relevance: police reforms, criminal law (BNSS), rights of the accused, media ethics, and the balance between the state's investigative needs and individual rights.

2. Why in the News

• A Supreme Court PIL seeks a nationwide media protocol for police media briefings. The article says it has forced a question Indian policing "has quietly avoided": under what law is this done, should it be, and where should it stop. [1]
• The article is by Rupin Sharma, an IPS officer and DGP of Nagaland. It was printed on 25 September 2026 (Chennai edition, p. 12). [1]
• The article describes the practice: arrested persons are photographed handcuffed, flanked by policemen, sometimes with placards listing the alleged crime. The image circulates on social media, often before the accused is produced before a magistrate. [1]
• The search results did not surface the PIL's case details. Confirm the petitioner, bench and status before using them.

3. Background & Evolution

• Identification of Prisoners Act, 1920 (Act 33 of 1920) is the identification statute. It allows police to collect fingerprints and footprints of convicts and arrested persons. A Magistrate may order measurements or photographs to aid an investigation. [2][3]
• CrPC Section 82 (proclamation for an absconding person) is now BNSS 2023 Section 84. It lets courts proclaim absconders and publish proclamations in newspapers. It says nothing about photographs, but attaching one has become settled practice. [1][4]
• MHA Advisory on Media Policy of Police, 1 April 2010: issued to all States and UTs, with fifteen-point guidelines on media briefing. [6]
• The Identification of Prisoners Act, 1920 is itself old, and PRS has flagged issues with its scope. [3]
• The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 replaced the CrPC. A PIB comparison document tracks the changes. [7]

4. Core Static Facts

Item	Fact
Identification law	Identification of Prisoners Act, 1920 (Act 33 of 1920) [2]
Data covered	Fingerprints, footprints; Magistrate may order measurements and photographs [3]
Proclaimed absconder	BNSS 2023, s.84 (earlier CrPC s.82) [1][4]
s.84 trigger	Accused of an offence punishable with 10 years' imprisonment or more who fails to appear: court may pronounce consequences [4]
Police media guidance	MHA Advisory on Media Policy of Police, 1 April 2010, 15 points [6]
Statute on publishing photos	None specific [1]
Parent ministry	Ministry of Home Affairs (Police is a State subject)

5. Multi-Dimensional Analysis

Legal / Constitutional

• No statute expressly permits or bars publishing accused persons' photographs. Practice rests on precedent and habit. [1]
• The BNSS s.84 proclamation is a court process, not a police one. Photographs are an add-on. [1]
• The presumption of innocence and the burden of proof on the prosecution underlie the concern. [5]
• The article's test is necessity: does the investigation require the release? [1]

Ethical / Governance

• Public shaming before trial works as informal punishment.
• Accountability needs a statutory or protocol-based framework rather than discretion. [1]
• A viral image outlives an acquittal.

Administrative

• The police force is thinly stretched, and public alerts have done what it could not alone. [1]
• The 2010 MHA advisory is advisory, not binding, and policing is a State subject. [6]

Social

• Wanted-person notices have helped recover missing children and bring fugitives to book after trails went cold. [1]
• Harm falls on the wrongly accused and on vulnerable groups.

Technological

• Social media circulation happens within minutes of arrest. [1]
• Photographs cannot be recalled once released.

6. Recent Developments (last 12-18 months)

• 25 Sep 2026: The Hindu op-ed by DGP Nagaland Rupin Sharma on the legal basis for publicising accused persons' photographs. [1]
• A Supreme Court PIL seeking a nationwide protocol for police media briefings is pending, per the article. [1]
• Further dated developments could not be verified from the retrieved sources.

7. Prelims Hooks

• The Identification of Prisoners Act is from 1920 (Act 33 of 1920). [2]
• It covers fingerprints, footprints and, on Magistrate's order, photographs. [3]
• BNSS 2023 s.84 corresponds to CrPC s.82, the proclamation for an absconding person. [1][4]
• The BNSS s.84 10-year threshold applies to offences punishable with imprisonment of 10 years or more. [4]
• The MHA Advisory on Media Policy of Police is dated 1 April 2010 and has 15 points. [6]
• The advisory was issued to all States and UTs by the Ministry of Home Affairs. [6]
• No single statute governs police publication of accused persons' photographs. [1]
• The accused is presumed innocent, and the prosecution must prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt. [5]
• s.84 BNSS says nothing about photographs. [1]

8. The 1920 Act Is Gone, and the New Law Still Says Nothing

• The note's base law was repealed in 2022 — write the new name in the exam.
• The Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022 replaced the Identification of Prisoners Act, 1920 [9].

• So the current statute on taking an accused person's photograph is the 2022 Act. The note's "verify" flag in §10 is now settled.

• The new law is much wider than the old one

• It allows collection of finger prints, palm prints, foot prints, iris and retina scans, biological samples such as blood and hair, DNA profiling, and even signature and handwriting [9].
• A Head Constable can now take measurements. Under the 1920 Act the rank was higher [9].

• A Magistrate may order collection from any person to help an investigation, not only from an arrested person [9].

• But collecting is not the same as publishing — this is the heart of the gap.

• The 2022 Act gives police the power to take the image and store it [9].
• No line in it says the police may hand that image to the press.

• So Parliament rewrote this whole area in 2022 and still left the release of photographs unwritten. The article's complaint survives the new law [1][9].

• A safeguard was asked for in 1980 and is still missing

• The Law Commission (1980) said the Magistrate should have to record reasons before ordering measurements. The 1920 Act did not require it, and the 2022 Act did not add it [9].
• The same habit — a power used without any written reason — now repeats one step later, at the moment the photo is released.

9. The Law Can Delete the File, But Not the Photo Already on WhatsApp

• The 2022 Act promises deletion. The promise stops at the state's own computer.
• Records are kept for 75 years in digital form in the NCRB database (National Crime Records Bureau, the central agency that stores crime data) [9].
• If a person is acquitted after all appeals, or released without trial, the record is to be destroyed [9].

• But the photo sent to reporters on the day of arrest is now on thousands of phones. No order can reach those copies. The State can only delete its own.

• Even the deletion promise has an exception

• A court may direct that the record be kept, by recording reasons in writing [9].

• Use this as your sharpest contrast in a Mains answer

• For data, Parliament built an exit door: an acquitted person gets the file destroyed [9].
• For publicity, there is no exit door at all, because there is no law on publicity in the first place [1].
• So the less-harmful act (quietly storing a fingerprint) is regulated, and the more-public act (a face circulated nationwide) is not.

10. Acquittal Is Not a Rare Accident — the Numbers

• More people were acquitted than convicted in IPC cases
• NCRB, Crime in India 2023: 11,37,639 persons convicted and 11,84,027 persons acquitted under IPC crimes [10].
• 30,03,024 persons were arrested in IPC cases [10]. Each arrest is a moment where a photo could be taken and shared.

• So "but he was acquitted later" is not a rare tragedy you mention at the end of an essay. It is the more common ending.

• Why this changes the argument, not just decorates it

• The case for publicity assumes the person in the photo is probably guilty.

• The data says roughly as many of them are not [10]. The cost of a wrong photo is therefore a normal cost of the practice, not an exception to it.

• A trap while quoting numbers

• NCRB also publishes a conviction rate: 66.6 (2018), 66.4 (2019), 73.4 (2020) for IPC and Special & Local Laws crimes together [11].
• That rate is counted differently from the person-wise convicted/acquitted table [10][11]. Quote one or the other, never both in the same sentence, or your answer contradicts itself.

11. The Strongest Case for Publishing — and Exactly Where It Runs Out

• Take the other side seriously first. The article is written by a serving DGP, and the case is real [1].
• The police force is thinly stretched. A photograph turns the public into thousands of extra searchers, at almost no cost [1].
• Wanted-person notices have recovered missing children and traced fugitives after the trail went cold [1].

• The law already accepts this logic in one place: under BNSS 2023, s.84, a court can proclaim an absconder and publish the proclamation in a newspaper [1][4].

• Now see the line the practice crosses

• The s.84 proclamation is for a person who has run away and refuses to appear. Publicity is the only way to reach him. It is also ordered by a court, not chosen by a police officer [4].

• A handcuffed man standing between two constables is already found. Publishing his photo cannot help locate him, so the article's necessity test — does the investigation require this release? — gives the answer "no" [1].

• Concede the hard middle case honestly

• Sometimes the photo of an arrested person does help: other victims of the same offender may come forward and identify him.
• The answer is not a ban. It is that such a release should need a written reason on file — the same safeguard the Law Commission asked for in 1980 and never got [9].
• Say this in your answer and you have taken a position, not sat on the fence.

12. Why a Supreme Court Protocol May Not Reach the Police Station

• The order has to travel through State police, and that last step is where such orders usually stop
• Police is a State subject, so the Ministry of Home Affairs can only advise. Its Advisory on Media Policy of Police (1 April 2010, 15 points) went to all States and UTs and binds none of them [6].
• The closest precedent is police reform itself: the Supreme Court's directions in the Prakash Singh case went to every State, and MHA's own status note on police reforms tracks how partially States acted on them [8].

• A media-briefing protocol faces exactly the same last-mile problem: it will be printed, circulated, and ignored by the station writing the placard.

• What could actually give it teeth

• Centre (MHA): frame the release rule as a rule under the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022, not as an advisory. The 2022 Act and the NCRB database are central, so a rule made under it applies across States without waiting for each one to adopt it [9].
• State DGPs: convert the 15 points of the 2010 advisory into binding standing orders, so breach becomes a departmental offence rather than a lapse of taste [6].
• The officer releasing the image: record in writing, before release, what the investigation gains from it — the reasoned-order safeguard the Law Commission recommended in 1980 [9]. A written reason creates a file, and a file creates accountability.

13. Anchors for Answers

• Data: 11,84,027 persons acquitted vs 11,37,639 convicted in IPC cases; 30,03,024 persons arrested — NCRB, Crime in India 2023 [10]
• Data: Criminal record retention of 75 years in digital form in the NCRB database, destroyed on acquittal after all appeals unless a court orders otherwise [9]
• Report/Committee: Law Commission (1980) — Magistrate should record reasons before ordering measurements; not adopted in 1920 or 2022 [9]
• Report/Committee: MHA, Committee on Reforms of Criminal Justice System (Malimath) — presumption of innocence and burden of proof [5]
• Law/Case: Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022 (Act 11 of 2022), which repealed the Identification of Prisoners Act, 1920 [9]
• Law/Case: BNSS 2023, s.84 (earlier CrPC s.82) — court-ordered proclamation of an absconder, published in a newspaper [4]
• Law/Case: Prakash Singh police reform directions, and MHA's own status note on how far States implemented them [8]
• Scheme/Instrument: MHA Advisory on Media Policy of Police, 1 April 2010 — 15 points, advisory only, not binding on States [6]

14. Mains Relevance

• GS-II: Government policies and interventions; transparency and accountability; rights and the judiciary.
• GS-IV: Ethics in public administration and dilemmas of the public servant.
• GS-III: Internal security and police, where this is treated as part of policing.
• Plausible questions:
• Publicity of accused persons by police undermines the presumption of innocence. Examine the legal gaps and suggest a framework. (15 marks)
• Trial by media begins at the police station. Discuss with reference to police media briefing protocols. (10 marks)
• Balancing investigative utility and dignity of the accused: how should police decide when to publish photographs? (250 words)

15. Related Topics to Study Next

• Article 21 and dignity of the accused: the core rights framework.
• Presumption of innocence and burden of proof: the underlying principle. [5]
• BNSS 2023 vs CrPC: the statutory shift. [7]
• Identification of Prisoners Act, 1920 and the newer Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022: the newer law replaced the 1920 Act (verify).
• Police reforms (Prakash Singh case): the structural context. [8]
• Malimath Committee on Criminal Justice reforms: earlier reform thinking. [8]
• Media trial and contempt of court: the limits on prejudicial publicity.
• Right to privacy: the constitutional basis for protecting the arrested person's image.

16. Common Errors / Trap Areas

• BNSS s.84 is proclamation of absconders. It is not s.82; s.82 was the CrPC number.
• The MHA 2010 media advisory is not a statute and is not binding on States.
• Do not claim a law "bans" publishing photographs. The article says no statute either permits or prohibits it. [1]
• Do not confuse the 1920 Act with the 2022 Act that replaced it (verify the successor before citing).
• Police and public order are State subjects, so a nationwide protocol would face federalism questions.