Supreme Court Justice Vikram Nath urges Delhi High Court to live-stream its proceedings

Supreme Court judge Justice Vikram Nath on Thursday appealed the Delhi High Court to start live-streaming of its proceedings.

The top court judge made the request while speaking at the launch of Delhi High Court Mobile App, e-HRMS Portal for Judicial Officers, e-Office Pilot Project and onboarding of MCD Appellate Tribunal/JJBs on e-Courts, Digital Preservation of Judicial Records.

“Live streaming has not started in Delhi. Delhi High Court must go live. It is the premiere institution of the country. That is my requestion. It has to be full house decision and some judges may have some issues but it should go live," Justice Nath said.

He then publicly asked if any judge has any objection. He also asked the High Court Chief Justice if he has any objection. All of them said no.

He then addressed Justice Prathiba M Singh - who is head of the High Court IT Committee, saying none of the judges have any objection.

“Then it should go live. Call me again [to inaugurate] when it goes live,” he said.

Interestingly, Delhi High Court in October 2023 had announced live-streaming of its proceedings. However, after an initial experiment, the High Court halted the project.

"In pursuit of greater access to justice, the High Court of Delhi is going to start the live streaming of court proceedings on 11 October, 2023 at 10:30 am in Court No. 1 (comprising Hon'ble Mr Justice Satish Chandra Sharma, Hon'ble the Chief Justice and Hon'ble Mr Justice Sanjeev Narula) in an identified matter," the High Court had said then.

The live streaming link still is available on the home page of the official website of Delhi High Court https://delhihighcourt.nic.in under the title - LIVE STREAMING.

In a communication issued then, the High Court had said that the contents of 'LIVE STREAMING' are for information purpose only and the live streaming/archival data shall not be considered official record of the court proceedings.

Delhi High Court already has a hybrid system in place, allowing the lawyers, litigants and general public to attend the proceedings of its benches through WebEx.