Hearings by Constitution bench and CJI’s court can be live-streamed to start with, Centre tells SC
Senior advocate Indira Jaising agreed with the Centre’s suggestion but said sufficient safeguards should be implemented.
Proceedings of cases heard by the Constitution bench and the chief justice’s court can be live-streamed initially on an experimental basis, the Centre told the Supreme Court on Monday. Attorney General KK Venugopal suggested to the court that after one to three months, the pilot project can be analysed and made more efficient, PTI reported.
On July 9, the court had favoured live-streaming of hearings and had asked Venugopal to submit proposed guidelines.
Senior advocate Indira Jaising, who has filed the petition in the matter before the court, agreed with Venugopal’s suggestion but said sufficient safeguards should be implemented to ensure that clippings of recordings are not circulated and used for commercial purposes, Bar and Bench reported. The court asked the attorney general to give his suggestions in writing, and listed the matter for hearing on August 3.
In the previous hearing, the court had said it was in favour of live-streaming all court proceedings, except those of rape cases, matrimonial disputes and in-camera hearings. Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud also observed that live-streaming case proceedings was the “need of the hour”.
In her petition, Jaising had said live telecast of proceedings would increase access to courts and “negate the chances of any misreporting, errors or second-hand information”.