India SC allows live streaming of hearings
India's Supreme Court yesterday agreed to live-streaming and video recording of court proceedings.
Giving the ruling, an apex court bench said necessary rules for balancing the rights of the public and protecting the dignity of the litigants will be placed soon.
"Sunlight is the best disinfectant", the three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said while allowing live streaming of court proceedings.
Live-streaming of court proceedings will effectuate the "public right to know" and bring in more transparency in judicial proceedings, the court said.
The verdict was passed on a batch of petitions, including those filed by senior lawyer Indira Jaising, law student Snehil Tripathi and NGO 'Centre For Accountability and Systemic Change' on the issue.
The apex court had earlier termed the proposal of live streaming of the court proceedings as the "need of the hour".
Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for the Centre 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 and had submitted suggestions on the guidelines for live streaming of court proceedings.
Venugopal had 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.
During the hearing in the case yesterday, the bench had agreed to the government's suggestion for starting with an experiment of delayed live streaming in the Chief Justice of India's court room pertaining to important constitutional issues.
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