Digital Desk: From September 27, all Supreme Court constitution bench hearings will be live-streamed. On Tuesday, a full court comprised of all of the Supreme Court's judges deliberated on the issue and made a decision on live streaming.
The full court meeting was presided over by Chief Justice of India (CJI)
Uday Umesh Lalit, who was unanimous that live-streaming should begin with
broadcasting constitutional cases on a regular basis.
Challenges to the
economically backward class quota law, the religious practise of
excommunication in the Dawoodi Bohra community, the Supreme Court's power to
dissolve marriages on the grounds of irretrievable breakdown, and the Centre's
petition for enhanced compensation for victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy
are among the cases that are likely to be live-streamed.
Last week, senior
advocate Indira Jaising wrote to the CJI and his colleagues, requesting that
the Supreme Court begin live streaming of proceedings involving matters of
public and constitutional importance. She was one of the petitioners in 2018
who sought the inclusion of live-streaming as a component of every citizen's
right to freedom of information and access to justice.
Over three years after
a ruling recommended live-streaming of hearings, the Supreme Court telecast its
first proceedings involving a ceremonial bench bidding farewell to Lalit's
predecessor, NV Ramana, in August.
The Supreme Court
declared live telecast of court proceedings to be part of the right to access
justice under Article 21 of the Constitution in September 2018.
Following that, the
Supreme Court's e-Committee, led by Justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, issued
model guidelines to govern live-streaming of court proceedings.
Gujarat, Orissa, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Patna, and Madhya Pradesh high courts broadcast their proceedings live on YouTube.
The e-Committee has been working on a proposal to launch an exclusive platform for live-streaming court proceedings. The platform proposal is part of the third phase of the e-courts project, an ambitious initiative to implement the use of information and technology in the judiciary.
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