Gujarat HC Live Streaming Rules: Live-Feeds Not To Be Considered Part Of Court Records, Violation Of Rules To Invite Contempt

The Chief Justice of India, N. V. Ramana on Saturday launched live streaming of Gujarat High Court proceedings and also released the Live Streaming Rules of the High Court.

Starting today, all the Courts shall be live-streamed and the general public would be able to view the court proceedings, however, the rules framed for the same contain some riders as well and violations like copying without authority and using them for any commercial purpose or for "undue publicity" can invite action under the Contempt of Courts Act.

The rules provide that the live streaming of the court proceedings would be done for general information purpose only, aimed to effectuate and broaden the principles of Open Court, transparency, access to justice and larger public interest.

Significantly, High Court proceedings of all cases except the following will be live-streamed:

• Cases involving matrimonial disputes,
• Cases of offences of sexual assault and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012,
• Cases involving children and juveniles,
• Cases relating to Official Secrets Act, 1923 or involving national security,
• Cases of Habeas Corpus petitions and
• Case proceedings ordered, with reasons recorded in writing, to be conducted in-camera.

Salient features of the Rules

High Court proceedings conducted through video conferencing as well as physically held court proceedings may be covered for live streaming, however, the rules provide that the Judges may, in their own wisdom, opt not to live stream or may not permit live stream of specific matters with due intimation to the Chief Justice.

Further, in case of any urgent need, the Presiding Judge may direct the assisting personnel to stop/pause the live streaming, if the same is found to be necessary for the interest of the administration of justice.

The mode of live streaming of Court proceedings may be any publicly available Live Streaming Platform / Portal for live webcasting of the audiovisual feed of the virtual/physical court proceedings and it could be with latency/delay of upto 2 minutes from the actual proceedings.

The Rules provide that the publication of the web link of accessing the live streaming of the court proceedings to be published on the website of the High Court and the same may also be published in the Cause list of the respective Courts.

Copyright over the videos

The Rules provide that the High Court shall hold copyright over live-streamed feed and videos, prohibiting any unauthorized copying of the live feed/videos, however, web-links to the entire videos as live-streamed / uploaded by the High Court may be used/embedded for any informational, educational and/or academic purposes.

But no unauthorized recording/streaming of the Court proceedings by anyone shall be deemed to be allowed.

Live Feed not to be considered a part of court proceedings

It is important to note that the rules say that the live streamed feed/videos of the court proceedings won't be considered as part of the case or court record or for reliance by any Subordinate Court of the State in any adjudication.

Further, the rules also provide that the live-streamed feed/videos of the court proceedings will not be allowed to be treated as evidence of anything relating to the Court proceedings and will also not be considered admissible as such, in any Court proceedings in the High Court or Subordinate Courts.

Significantly, the Rules further say that no content of the live-streamed feed/videos or any observations made therein, will be treated as authorized/certified/official version of anything relating to the Court proceedings.

"Only the orders/judgments pronounced by the respective Benches and the process / certified copies issued by the High Court Registry accordingly, will be treated as authentic and authorized," the rules add.

It is apposite to mention that the Supreme Court in Election Commission of India v MR Vijaya Bhaskar LL 2021 SC 244 had upheld the freedom of media to report the oral observations and discussions made by judges and lawyers during a court proceeding.

Regarding the oral remarks made during the Court proceedings, the Court had ruled thus:

"All that needs to be clarified is that the oral observations during the course of the hearing have passed with the moment and do not constitute a part of the record...It is trite to say that a formal opinion of a judicial institution is reflected through its judgments and orders, and not its oral observations during the hearing." [paragraph 42 and 43]