The Supreme Court of India on Wednesday agreed to allow live-streaming and video recording of court proceedings to effectuate the “public right to know” and bring in more transparency.
A report published on Wednesday by TOI stated the apex court here said that necessary rules for balancing rights of public and protecting dignity of litigants will be placed soon.
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While allowing live streaming of court proceedings, the bench of Apex Court as per the report said: “Sunlight is the best disinfectant, let people get first hand information about what is going on in court room proceedings.”
The report quoted the court as saying: Live-streaming of court proceedings will effectuate the “public right to know” and bring in more transparency in judicial proceedings.
The verdict was passed by the Supreme Court on a batch of petitions, including those filed by senior advocate Indira Jaising, law student Snehil Tripathi and NGO ‘Centre For Accountability and Systemic Change’ urging the Apex Court to allow live streaming and video recording of the court proceedings..
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Earlier, the Apex Court termed the proposal of live streaming of the court proceedings as the “need of the hour”.
It has been reported that Attorney General KK Venugopal, while appearing for the Central Government on August 24, had said that live streaming could be introduced as a pilot project in the Chief Justice of
India’s court on matters of constitutional importance.
Attorney General KK Venugopal had also submitted suggestions on the guidelines for live streaming of court proceedings.
Venugopal had reportedly said the success of this project would determine whether live streaming should be introduced in other courts of the apex court and in courts across the country.
The petition by Snehil Tripathi, who is a student of National Law University in Jodhpur, had sought a direction for setting up live streaming rooms within the Apex Court premises and granting access to legal interns.
The petition also had sought requisite guidelines to facilitate witnessing of the proceedings for interns.
On the other hand, Jaising, in her PIL, had sought video-recording of proceedings on matters of
national importance. Meanwhile, the petition of the NGO, Centre For Accountability and Systemic
Change, has sought 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”.