NEW DELHI, Nov 3: The Supreme Court is currently engaged in institutionalising a national model and set up infrastructure for beaming live from a single platform proceedings in all the courts, from the subordinates courts to high courts and the apex court, the Chief Justice of India-designate DY Chandrachud said on Thursday.
Justice Chandrachud was heading a Bench with Justice Hima Kohli hearing a petition filed by advocate Mathews Nedumpara on live-streaming of proceedings. Justice Chandrachud urged Mr. Nedumpara also to consult domain experts and lawyers who are technically proficient to make live-streaming across courts a reality.
“We need a uniform framework for courts across the country… This has to be done as a national model,” Justice Chandrachud said. The judge, who is also the chairperson of the apex court’s e-committee, said live-streaming rules have already been formulated and many High Courts have already adopted them.
Justice Chandrachud said High Courts in Orissa, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Patna have started live-streaming their proceedings.
In September, the Supreme Court had started to live-stream Constitution Bench hearings. It had taken the court about four years to implement its own judgment in the Swapnil Tripathi case, which had upheld live-streaming. In that judgment, the court had said live-streaming would “virtually” expand the court beyond the four walls of the courtroom.
“Live-streaming of court proceedings has the potential of throwing up an option to the public to witness live court proceedings which they otherwise could not have due to logistical issues and infrastructural restrictions,” the court had said. Justice Chandrachud, who was on the Bench which gave the 2018 judgment, had observed that live-streaming of proceedings would be the true realisation of the “open court system” in which courts were accessible to all.
(Manas Dasgupta)
