SC to deliver verdict today on live streaming of court proceedings

New Delhi: The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce on Wednesday the verdict on a clutch of petitions seeking live streaming and video recording of court proceedings across the country.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud had reserved its verdict on August 24, saying it wanted to implement the concept of "open court" to decongest the courtrooms.

Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, 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.

"We don't perceive any difficulty in live streaming. Let us first start with it and see how it goes. We are just on a pilot project. We are not ruling out anything and will improve with time. We cannot have everything together," the bench had observed.

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.

He had also suggested that live streaming should be delayed by 70 seconds to allow the Judges to mute the sound when a lawyer misbehaves or if the matter is sensitive, like dealing with individual privacy or national security.