In a first, Supreme Court to live-stream its proceedings today

This will be the first time the top court will live-stream its proceedings although it remains unclear whether this will henceforth be a regular feature or the telecast of the ceremonial bench proceedings is being carried out as a pilot project.

The Supreme Court will on Friday go live and stream its proceedings online. This comes three years after a Supreme Court ruling recommended live-streaming its hearings.

According to a notice uploaded on the top court website, the proceedings of the ceremonial bench, which will bid adieu to Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, shall be live-streamed through a webcast portal.

This will be the first time the top court will live-stream its proceedings although it remains unclear whether this will henceforth be a regular feature or the telecast of the ceremonial bench proceedings is being carried out as a pilot project.

The Supreme Court’s e-Committee, headed by its sitting judge, Justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, had been working on a proposal to launch an exclusive platform for live-streaming court proceedings.

The proposition to have an online platform to live-stream the Supreme Court proceedings formed part of the third phase of the e-courts project, which is an ambitious initiative to implement the use of information and technology in India's judiciary.

By a judgment in September 2018, the Supreme Court had declared live telecast of court proceedings part of the right to access justice under Article 21 of the Constitution. Subsequently, Supreme Court's e-Committee's came out with model guidelines to regulate live-streaming of court proceedings in India.

Currently, six high courts in the country, namely Gujarat, Orissa, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Patna, and Madhya Pradesh, live-stream their proceedings through their own channels on YouTube.