SC to give verdict on live streaming of court proceedings on Wednesday

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court will on Wednesday give its judgement on whether court proceedings can be live streamed or not. The apex court had in August reserved its verdict on a batch of pleas related to the issue. 

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud said it would pass appropriate orders after Attorney General KK Venugopal had suggested to the court that live streaming of important cases in the Chief Justice's court can be started on a pilot basis. He had said that the process can be adopted in other courtrooms depending on the success of the pilot project. 

Opposing the move, one of the lawyers present in the courtroom had said that it will have an implication on the administration of justice and may also lead to "spreading of fake news". 

The top court had observed that it aims to implement the concept of open courts which in turn would help to reduce the crowd in the court. It said live streaming may also be a help for academic purposes. 

It had also earlier termed the proposal of live streaming of the court proceedings as the "need of the hour". 

In a plea filed by Swapnil Tripathi, a student of National Law University in Jodhpur, he had sought requisite guidelines to facilitate witnessing of the proceedings for interns. The petition had sought a direction of setting up live streaming rooms within the apex court premises and granting access to legal interns. 

Senior advocate Indira Jaising had also filed a PIL for video-recording of proceedings in matters of national importance. Besides Jaising and Tripathi, NGO Centre For Accountability and Systemic Change, through its lawyer Virag Gupta, had also filed a PIL seeking a direction to the apex court registry and the Ministries of Law and Justice and Electronics and Information Technology to "video record the proceedings of all the courts and make them available to public and parties, subject to regulations".