Supreme Court Examines Protocol for Police Media Briefings

Gist The Supreme Court is currently examining a Public Interest Litigation seeking a nationwide protocol for police media briefings to regulate the routine and unregulated publication of accused persons' photographs on social media. This judicial scrutiny is forcing a shift away from colonial-era investigative habits and "police optics" towards a system that respects the presumption of innocence. For a civil services aspirant, this development highlights the friction between the state's investigative needs under statutory criminal procedures and an individual's fundamental right to dignity and privacy under Article 21 . Background Currently, no single statutory law explicitly permits or prohibits the police from publishing photographs of arrested individuals before a trial. The practice relies on a patchwork of general investigative powers, colonial-era State Police Manuals which allowed "Hue and Cry Notices" , and administrative discretion under the Police Act, 1861 . While the Criminal Procedure Identification Act, 2022 allows police to collect and store photographs of the accused, it does not contain provisions authorizing their public circulation. This legal vacuum has led to the widespread institutional showcasing of arrests, prompting the…