Senior Advocate Indira Jaising Requests CJI To Live-Stream Constitution Bench Hearings

Jaising in her letter expressed that issues of great national importance are being discussed, debated and decided upon by the Supreme Court.

The Senior Advocate illustrated the matters in her letter stating that the matters being taken up by the Constitution benches are matters like, the matter challenging the Constitutional Validity of the 103rd Amendment in which the arguments revolved around issues of social and political justice for discriminated castes and whether reservations in public employment and education can be made purely on economic grounds. She also gave the examples of the matter related to the validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act of 1955, matter related to the issue of marital rape and the issue of restitution of conjugal rights.

"Significant issues about what constitutes equality, substantive equality, discrimination based on caste, sex, religion, and what is secularism will be addressed and decisions which concern the interpretation of the Constitution will be taken by this Hon'ble Court", she added.

It was stated in the letter that she had also filed a writ petition with the case titled Indira Jaising versus Secretary General of Supreme Court and Others, before the Court requesting to declare live streaming as part of the right to freedom of information and right of access to justice for every citizen. She also added that the Attorney General of India had also appeared and supported the propositions advanced by her and placed guidelines before the Court and the combined guidelines found place in the judgment of Swapnil Tripathi v. Supreme Court of India.

Laying emphasis on the urgency of the matter, she stated in the letter that, "As a senior practising lawyer and given my own interest in arguments advanced in court in cases of constitutional law, I have a deep interest in observing proceedings in court in real time and when necessary to write about them. There is no substitute for first hand knowledge, especially in the era of what has come to be known as "fake news" and hence, there is an urgent need for real time information."

She also impressed upon the fact that under Article 129 of the Constitution of India, the Supreme Court is a court of record and she therefore requested to start live streaming of the proceedings in order to keep a record of the arguments advanced by the counsels on all sides. She also stated that the Court should have its own channel and in the meantime can start streaming the proceedings on its website as well as on Youtube.

Recently, the proceedings before the ceremonial bench on the last working day of Chief Justice of India NV Ramana were live-streamed for public. It is the first and the only instance so far of the Supreme Court live-streaming its proceedings.