With flood of social media posts on live court proceedings, Gujarat advocate body wants contempt cases

The body raised questions over 'sensationalising, oblique and commercial purposes' of the proceedings

With a flood of posts on social media platforms commenting on court proceedings with attached video clips taken from live streaming, the Gujarat High Court Advocates' Association (GHAA) on Thursday wrote to the high court chief justice against "flagrant and widespread" violation of provisions of live-streaming of court proceedings rules.

Asking for initiation of contempt proceedings against such social media users, the association in the letter through its president Asim Pandya has raised questions over "sensationalising, oblique and commercial purposes" of the proceedings and that too out of context.

The letter addressed to the chief justice, Gujarat high court has mentioned several links of YouTube channels, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter users commenting on the proceedings along with video clips for "entertainment process." The letter says that the reason for writing this letter is several complaints he has received from members of association and clients alike that "these clippings have been taken out of context."

Attaching links with "inappropriate" tag lines such as, "When the Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court schooled two lawyers arguing over a custody battle...,You can be kicked out of the court Mr AGP- Says #gujarathighcourt, Gujarat high court justice super angry moment today..," the letter argues, "The unauthorised use of the clippings with inappropriate tag lines is only one aspect of the violation. ...One stray incident in court proceeding of an advocate being taken to task by court or any unsavory exchange of dialogue between an advocate and a judge or a comment made by a judge in a lighter sense against an advocate cannot be repeatedly allowed to be circulated in any form by visual representation out of context."

The letter has attached several other links with captions where the live-streaming laws are claimed to have been violated. Some of these read, " ANGRY JUDGE CALLED ADVOCATE KIDNEY STONE. You are Shedding the Crocodile Tears | Argument Before Hon’ble Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court . Young Lady Lawyer Argue like this?"

The letter, requesting the chief justice to take suo motu action, states that "a very sorry trend" is being witnessed where the video clips of court proceedings are "copied, edited and used by various channels on social media channels such as Youtube, Facebook, Instagram etc.... for sensationalising, oblique and commercial purposes..."

"I, therefore, earnestly request your good office to take suo motu cognisance in this matter at the earliest and issue contempt notices to all concerned brazenly violating the Livestreaming Rules," Pandya has said in the letter.

In July, 2021, the Gujarat High Court had launched live streaming of court proceedings of all "willing benches". It is the first high court in the country to allow public viewing of the proceedings virtually.

The court also framed rules, which stated that "The High Court of Gujarat shall hold copyright over live streamed feed and videos, prohibiting any unauthorised copying of the live feed / videos. Unauthorised use/re-use, capture, editing/ re-editing, distribution/redistribution, or creating derivative works or compiling the live streamed feed / videos or using the same for any commercial purpose, in any form, will not be permitted."