A new era dawned on India’s jurisprudence late last month with the beginning of live-streaming of Supreme Court proceedings on matters of constitutional and national importance.
Day 1 of the livestream on September 27 recorded 8 lakh views on the top court’s website, besides the coverage played on television channels and their social media handles.
While the move makes court proceedings more transparent and accessible to ordinary citizens, there is another group thankful for this peek into the legal rigour – law students. The students who would one day be part of the justice system get to first-hand observe the workings of the court, senior lawyers told News18.
“The live-streaming of court proceedings would make courts accessible for the general public. It would not only bring transparency but would also be a plus point for law students and interns who would actually get to see the practicality of court-craft right in front of their eyes,” senior Advocate Rebecca John told News18.
“It would serve as a vardaan to law students of Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities for whom the Supreme Court could not be accessible in the general course,” she added.
According to senior advocate Sanjoy Ghose: “On the positive side, live-streaming will create an audio-visual record of the proceedings for posterity. It would capture the court craft of the lawyers and judges’ intervention, case management. Law students can now access these hearings and be apprised of how the bar and the bench created history.”
The senior counsel, however, highlighted a drawback too, saying the court’s questions may be construed to be the judge’s personal beliefs. “Under the Indian adversarial legal system, often the court asks queries to counsels on opposite sides with a view to exploring the contours of a legal proposition,” he explained.
“Merely because the court asks a question, does not necessarily imply that this is what the judge believes. It simply means the judge wants to hear the view of the counsel on that point. In the age of live tweeting and live-stream, this kind of frank and free discourse might be a causality as each comment from the bench is made into breaking news and is dissected and analysed beyond measure,” Ghose added.
Hailing the move and drawing attention to its significance, Vikas Pahwa, senior advocate and member executive of the Supreme Court Bar Association, said: “The objective of live-streaming is to facilitate the concept of open court hearings. It makes the judicial system more transparent and accountable. This is a big milestone in the history of the justice delivery system of our country. I compliment the Supreme Court for making it happen.”
Addressing concerns over the move, Pahwa said: “It is true that both the bar and bench will now be subjected to scrutiny not only on their knowledge of law, level of preparedness, demeanour, but also on their attire and dialect. There shall be criticism, debate, analysis of what is said and observed in the court rooms. But eventually, it shall enhance the credibility of the institution.”
Citing benefits of the livestream for law students, he said: “Young lawyers and students of law shall be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the live-streaming of court proceedings.”
The long-pending move of live-streaming court proceedings came to fruition after the full court unanimously approved it for proceedings of national importance from September 27.
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