The Maharashtra government has sought the Centre's approval to a proposal to provide video conferencing facility in courts for remanding undertrials to judicial custody.

With this facility the magistrates or judges can talk to the undertrials concerned directly and pass the remand orders, eliminating the need to the prisoners to be physically present in courts.

The state home department has informed the office of Additional Advocate General P Janardhanan that a proposal in this regard has been forwarded to the Centre and its approval is awaited, Bombay high court sources said.

The matter arose out of a petition filed by an undertrial stating that he and other prisoners were not taken to the courts for remand due to lack of police personnel on escort duty. The petition stated that undertrials had a right to be heard by the court before they were remanded to custody.

The state government's earlier proposal for using video conferencing to remand undertrials to police custody as well, had been returned with the Centre asking the state to modify the proposal to make it applicable only for judicial custody.