KOLKATA: Installing CCTV cameras in a residential property, without the resident’s permission, violated her privacy, Calcutta High Court has recently said. The court said a woman, who had alleged that her estranged husband had installed such cameras in a home she co-owned – and where she primarily lived – was well within her rights to remove the devices.
“If she is in possession (of the property), she will deactivate the CCTVs”, Justice Tirthankar Ghosh said, directing the local police (Tollygunge PS, in this case) to see to it that no disturbance took place in the process.
The court was hearing, on Monday, a plea filed by an actor and dancer who, after marital dispute with her husband, started living in a flat in Tollygunge that she claims she co-owns, but which her husband had fraudulently transferred co-ownership to his sister.
She alleged she had been physically and mentally abused by her husband and in-laws. Her counsel told the court that CCTV cameras had been installed in the flat as well as outside her bedroom at another flat in Burtolla, her matrimonial house.
The petitioner had alleged that she and her husband had bought the Tollygunge studio apartment and that she believed it was in both their names. She said she later found out that her husband had fraudulently transferred the property to his sister’s name. Her in-laws had deceived her both in terms of “property and matrimonial rights”, she alleged.
Counsel for the husband repeatedly pointed out that the sister was in possession of the property, and could, therefore, rightfully install the cameras. But the Tollygunge cops filed a report, saying the petitioner was in possession.
“You have your property; I am not interfering with it,” Justice Tirthankar Ghosh said. “CCTV involves the permission of the person. You cannot breach the privacy…. Tollygunge police station report reflects that she is in possession (of the Tollygunge property).”
Justice Ghosh, however, clarified that the order was only for the Tollygunge flat, not the Burtolla house, since the petitioner lives mostly at the former property.
