Plea For Live Streaming Of Ayodhya Hearing Referred To CJI

The Supreme Court on Friday referred the plea of former RSS chief KN Govindacharya's plea seeking live streaming of hearing in Ayodhya case to the bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi.

"Ayodhya hearing is sensitive. How can it be live streamed?."

"We are an open court but not to outsiders. It's open only to litigants," Justice Nariman observed and posted the matter for listing on September 11.

 Senior Advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for petitioner, submitted before the bench of Justices Nariman and Surya Kant that at least audio recording and transcription of arguments in Ayodhya case should begin. It's a case of grave social and constitutional importance.

"The Court should at least start transcription of the proceedings, so that they may be released later as per approval of the Court," Singh said.

The five judges bench has been hearing the Ayodhya issue since August 6, and has completed twenty days of hearing so far.

Earlier, Govindacharya's counsel had mentioned before the constitution bench for video recording but the court had declined to pass any order.

The petition referred to the Apex Court's September 2018 judgement which had ruled that court proceedings must be live streamed. According to the petition, despite around a year having gone by, the implementation of the Supreme Court ruling issue yet to take place.

Govindacharya, in the petition, said "this case is a matter of national importance. There are crores of persons...., who want to witness its proceedings before this court, but cannot do the same due to the present norms in the Supreme Court."

"People were desperate for early justice in the Ram Temple matter, wherein Lord Ram was kept in a makeshift tent for the past many years...This matter has been pending in the Supreme Court for the last nine years, and the public at large is interested in knowing the reasons behind the delay in deciding the cases," the plea also said.

The petitioner also states that the Constitution contains pictures of Lord Ram. Hence, live streaming of Ayodhya case will fulfill "Constitutional Patriotism".

"..considering the fact that the original copies of the Constitution itself detail pictures of Lord Ram. It is submitted that the live streaming of proceedings before this Hon'ble Court will also fulfil the mandate of constitutional patriotism.", the petition said.