SC moves closer to live streaming of its proceedings, reserves verdict (Lead)

New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Friday moved closer to the live streaming of its proceedings as it said that it was an expansion of the concept of open court hearing of matters without crowding the court rooms.

Reserving the order on a batch of petitions including by senior counsel Indira Jaising, the bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A. M. Khanwilkar and Justice D. Y. Chandrachud said: "Let us first start with. We are just on a pilot project."

"We are not ruling out anything. We will improve with time. Let us first start with. We are just on a pilot project," Justice Chandrachud said as a lawyer expressed his apprehension about its likely misuse and others wanted to further expand its scope by including transcription of the recorded proceedings.

Attorney General K.K. Venugopal on Friday submitted the Comprehensive Guidelines for Live Streaming of Court Proceedings.

It says that live streaming of the top court proceedings would begin as a pilot project in court number one presided over by the Chief Justice of India and would be confined to the proceedings of the constitution bench matters.

It is only upon the success of the pilot project, that the live streaming of the top court proceedings would be extended to other benches of the courts as well.

The guidelines submitted to the court say that apart from live streaming of the proceedings, the court may in future also provide for transcribing facilities and archive the audio-visual record of the proceedings to make the webcast accessible to the litigants and other interested people who are unable to witness the court proceedings for a variety of reasons.