Supreme Court To Live Stream Proceedings Of All Its Courts On A New Portal, Starts Trial With 6 Courts
The Supreme Court of India has decided to begin live-streaming of proceedings of all its Courts. On a trial basis, today, the Supreme Court started streaming proceedings in 6 of its courtrooms.
Interestingly, the live streaming is being done using the Court's dedicated application, rather than on its official YouTube channel, where currently all hearings before a bench strength of five or more judges is being live streamed. The hearing related to the RG Kar College rape and murder case is being streamed live on YouTube, even though it is before a bench of three judges.
An application designed for this purpose, named the SIC Streaming app, is currently active at SCI Streaming Portal.
This development follows the Supreme Court's landmark 2018 ruling in Swapnil Tripathi v. Supreme Court of India, which facilitated virtual access to courtroom proceedings. In that decision, the Court mandated live-streaming for cases of constitutional and national significance, while excluding cases involving juveniles, sexual assault, and matrimonial disputes.
Incidentally, in May last year, Chief Justice DY Chandrachud had expressed concern about video clips of hearings of Courts that are being streamed live on YouTube being shared widely on social media.
Also, in April last year, the Supreme Court had disposed of a plea moved by former RSS ideologue KN Govindacharya, seeking a direction for a special arrangement with YouTube to safeguard the copyright of its live-streamed proceedings in accordance with a 2018 judgment. The Court had then observed that it has started "action" to address the issue.
During a recent hearing related to the RG Kar College rape and murder case, the Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal appearing for the State of West Bengal had objected to live streaming of the hearing, claiming that his reputation is being tarnished due to live streaming. CJI Chandrachud had turned down the request to stop live streaming.