Supreme Court says CJI S A Bobde to decide on live streaming court proceedings

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to pass any judicial order on a plea for implementing its 2018 judgement for live streaming of court proceedings in constitutional and national importance, saying it would be decided by the Chief Justice of India on the administrative side.

"There cannot be any command on the administrative side of the Supreme Court. The CJI has to take a call on the administrative side on this issue," a three-judge bench presided over by Justice Arun Mishra said, even as Additional Solicitor General Madhavi Divan appearing for the SC Secretary-General submitted that the process for implementing the judgement has already started.

Attorney General K K Venugopal also submitted before the bench, also comprising Justices Vineet Saran and M R Shah, that the Secretary-General has started the process of installing infrastructure for live streaming.

Senior advocate Indira Jaising asked the court to issue directions for implementation of September 26, 2018, passed in the PIL filed by a law student, Swapnil Tripathi. She said her limited plea for issuing direction for preparing the guidelines live streaming and starting it on a pilot project basis.

Everybody has a right to know what was going in national importance matters, she said, adding that the judgement had emphasised that live streaming was a part of the right to access justice.

The court, however, told her she could not file an application for issuing judicial direction. “Let us see if the pilot project works,” the bench said.