Yes — and in many criminal cases in Patna, CCTV footage has been the single most decisive defence evidence, precisely because it is objective in a way that oral testimony never is. Where the footage shows where you actually were at the time of an alleged incident, or demonstrates that the complainant's account of events is demonstrably false, its impact on a Patna court can be transformative.

Patna presents both opportunity and challenge when it comes to CCTV evidence. The city's commercial areas — around Gandhi Maidan, Boring Road, Station Road, Ashok Rajpath, Frazer Road, and the Bailey Road corridor — have significant private and commercial CCTV coverage, and government installations add to this. The Patna Police Commissionerate has also expanded camera coverage across major intersections. The opportunity is that relevant footage may well exist. The challenge — and this is critical — is that CCTV systems routinely overwrite recordings within a matter of days or weeks. The moment you believe relevant footage exists, you must act to preserve it: a written preservation notice to the building or business controlling the camera, delivered the same day, is often the difference between footage that saves you and footage that is irretrievably gone. Your lawyer can also move a court application directing preservation of the recording where a private party may not cooperate.

The legal requirements for using CCTV footage in your defence are as important as the footage itself. Electronic evidence is now governed by the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 (BSA), and Section 63 BSA (the successor to Section 65B of the Evidence Act) imposes a mandatory certificate requirement: without the proper certificate from the person responsible for the computer or recording system, the footage is generally inadmissible as secondary electronic evidence. The Supreme Court's decisions in Anvar P.V. v. P.K. Basheer and Arjun Panditrao Khotkar v. Kailash Kushanrao Gorantyal confirmed this unequivocally, and these rulings apply in Patna's courts. Getting the Section 63 BSA certificate, verifying the chain of custody of the recording, and establishing that the system clock was accurate are all essential steps — the footage is only as strong as the legal framework that proves it. The criminal defence advocates at the Patna panel of Aapka Legal Advice can take every step needed to preserve, certify, and present CCTV evidence effectively.