As a student in a law school, back in 2013 (when I was in the second year of the five-year law course), my father was encouraging me to inculcate the habit of writing and so he gave me the topic of “recording and live streaming of the Court proceedings” to write an article on. I did a little bit of research and gave it up for the “usual things” that any ordinary law student would do in his second year. Being a visionary and futuristic, as he always was, he had suggested this article to me in the year 2013, when even YouTube was not a “big thing” and naturally there was no live streaming happening on YouTube.
In the meanwhile, in 2018, the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Swapnil Tripathi v. Supreme Court of India, (2018) 10 SCC 628, decided by a three-judge bench of the Hon’ble Supreme Court comprising of the Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, Justice A. M. Khanwilkar and Justice D. Y. Chandrachud held that the right to view the Court proceedings flows from Article 21 of the Constitution of India. However, in effect, till date, the Supreme Court proceedings have not been streamed live online from General public.
Nonetheless, fast forward 7 years (from 2013), the COVID – 19 pandemic struck the country in 2020 and everything was shut down. Luckily, by then the technology was available to hold courts virtually and every advocate and common man was having a smart phone in their hands which was Wi-Fi enabled and had a good quality camera and microphone. Accordingly, the Courts were held virtually through various applications such as Webex, Vidyo, Zoom, etc. Since the courts proceedings were being held through the virtual mode, it was very easy for the Court Establishments to stream the proceedings live on the Web for the general public to view the same.
A couple of High Courts have proceeded ahead with live streaming the proceedings online, the leader being the Hon’ble High Court of Gujarat.
Recently, the Hijab matter that is listed before the Hon’ble Karnataka High Court was also streamed live on YouTube. At any given moment, there were more than 20,000 concurrent viewers of the live court proceedings. Within 3 – 4 days, there have been almost 7 Lakh views on the said live stream of the Court proceedings that were streamed online on YouTube. It is apparent that it was not possible for 7 lakh persons to have viewed the Court proceedings as there are physical limitations and at the maximum, not more than 200 persons, that too most of whom would be Advocates. The general public would not at all be in a position to view the Court Hearings and hear the arguments of the Courts.
Streaming the court proceedings online has a lot of benefits, i.e. whatever will be the decision of the Court, it will be appreciated by the general public in a much better way as they have had the opportunity of going through all the arguments that were placed before the Court.
In normal matters, there are only a handful number of persons who are interested in the outcome of the case they may be able to attend the Court even physically or through video conferencing, however, in cases like the Hijab case, Ram Mandir case, Sabarimala Temple Case, Aadhar Case, Right to Privacy, Marital Rape, etc., i.e. cases which affect the public at large, it is not possible for all the stakeholders to attend the Court proceedings, specifically so as the Court which may be adjudicating the dispute may be at a geographically different location.
However, when the Court hearings are live streaming online on the web, it becomes very beneficial and advantageous for the public at large to attend the Court proceedings and be acquainted with what happens in the Courts. It is just synonymous to the general public viewing the sessions of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha or of the State Legislature. There is a popular legal principle– “Justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done”, as was observed by Lord Hewart, the then Lord Chief Justice of England in the case of Rex v. Sussex Justices, [1924] 1 KB 256. This principle was propounded almost a century ago. However, I may take liberty to use this principle in the present scenario and say that for justice to be done, it may also be ‘seen’ to be done, i.e. the General public may have easy access to the Courts while the Courts are adjudicating matters, and by easy access, I mean that they may have access to the Court sitting on their Couch in the Houses or offices/workplaces. This will only enhance the confidence that the people of India in the Judiciary as they will understand and appreciate the pains taken by the Hon’ble Judges in deciding matters. Just like Hon’ble Dr. Justice Chandrachud had observed in the abovementioned Swapnil Tripathi matter, “sunlight is the best disinfectant”.
However, in light of the fact, that today or tomorrow, all courts will be streaming their proceedings live, I would like to suggest that instead of live streaming the Courts proceedings on a third party website – YouTube, the same may be done on the website of the Respective Courts. Keeping in mind the bandwidth that may be required, for live streaming the court proceedings all throughout India, the Government may perhaps partner with YouTube whereby the streaming may be done in a much better and organized manner.
