BREAKING | Supreme Court To Launch Live-Streaming Of Regular Hearings In All Benches

The Supreme Court is proposing to start the live-streaming of the regular hearings on all benches. The proceedings of all benches of the Supreme Court were streamed live on Friday (October 18) in a test format(can be accessed here).

The streaming was done on the Court's own application instead of its official YouTube channel. Currently, only constitution bench matters and hearings of public importance have been live-streamed. Recently, the 3-judge bench hearings in the NEET-UG matter and the RG Kar suo motu case were also live-streamed considering the public interest.

The official launch of the live-streaming is yet to happen.

In the 2018 landmark judgment in Swapnil Tripathi v. Supreme Court of India, the Supreme Court opened doors for virtual access to the courtroom proceedings. The Court issued directions for live streaming of cases of constitutional and national importance, barring those involving juveniles, cases of sexual assault, and matrimonial issues.

The first-ever matter live-streamed was the case on the EWS quota case (pleas challenging the 103rd Constitution Amendment) in 2022. Now with the Court initiating live-streaming for regular benches, the public will be able to watch the Court proceedings on regular matters. 

Like the Supreme Court, High Courts too are live-streaming court proceedings with Gujarat High Court being the first ever High Court to do that. 

The live-streaming of proceedings is based on the idea of open courts to effectuate the public right to know and bring in more transparency in judicial proceedings.