Gujarat High Court live streams court proceedings

 A Draft Ahmedabad Correspondent

On 26 October 2020, the Gujarat High Court became the first court in India to live stream the court proceedings on YouTube for public viewing. This has been initiated on an experimental basis for now.

Gujarat High Court became the first court in India to live stream court proceedings on YouTube

Honourable the Chief Justice of High Court of Gujarat, Justice Vikram Nath passed the following order on 26 October 2020:

"All the Benches of High Court of Gujarat are functioning through video conferencing throughout the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic crisis situation from 24-03-2020. Apart from all Ld. Advocates of the parties of both the sides, the parties, victims, corpus etc. also, as and when their presence is required during the course of the hearing, are taken in the video hearing for interaction or viewing the proceedings.

In the Model Video Conferencing Rules as prescribed by the eCommittee of Honourable the Supreme Court of India, it has been provided that public will be allowed to view the Court hearing conducted through video conferencing. In the judgment of WRIT PETITION (CIVIL) NO. 1232 OF 2017 , Honourable the Supreme Court of India has directed for live streaming of the Court proceedings. This Court has also observed on judicial side in R/WRIT PETITION (PIL) NO. 99 of 2020, relating to working out the modalities of live streaming of Court proceedings for media personnel.

Accordingly, with a view to effectuating and broadening the implementation of Open Court concept even during the virtual hearings of the Court, this High Court has already taken up on administrative side, to work out the modalities that can be adopted for giving access to anyone who wishes to watch the Court proceedings in live. Aspect of ensuring smooth functioning of the Benches and distraction free virtual hearing while making open such access, are being deliberated upon. 

As part of the said exercise, in order to ascertain the feasibility and workability of the available options for the same, this is to direct that, court proceedings of the Division Bench No. 1 [First Court] of the High Court will be telecast live, purely on experimental basis, from today the 26th October, 2020 on Youtube, link of which would be available from the homepage of the website of the High Court.

Aspect of continuing with or adapting the modality of live court proceedings will be decided based on the outcome of this trial starting today and any other trial of any other modality that may be taken up in due course."

The experimental live streaming of the First Court has accordingly started today. The link is accessible from the High Court website and will also be available in the Youtube Channel of the High Court of Gujarat. The link will be updated every evening of the previous working day.

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