india

Updated: Sep 07, 2019 01:21 IST

A Supreme Court bench on Friday referred a public interest litigation asking for live-streaming of the hearing in the ongoing Ayodhya land dispute to the Chief Justice of India even as it wondered if such a plea could be accepted in view of the sensitivity of the case.

A bench led by Justice RF Nariman posted activist KN Govindacharya’s petition before CJI Ranjan Gogoi’s court and fixed September 11 for it to be heard.

“The ‘open court system’ did not mean outsiders are privy to proceedings. It merely meant the court was open to litigants to attend proceedings,” the court remarked, asking whether it would be right to live-stream Ayodhya proceedings.

Senior advocate Vikas Singh said the issue was one of social and constitutional gravity. If not live-streamed, the proceedings should at least be audio-recorded and transcripts made available.

Govindacharya has in his petition referred to the Supreme Court’s 2018 judgment that ordered live-streaming of hearings in cases of national importance. The judgment is not yet implemented.

The case “famously known as the Ayodhya Ram Mandir matter” had created large-scale interest across India, Govindacharya stated in his petition.

“Live-streaming as an extension of the principle of open courts will ensure that the interface between a court hearing with virtual reality will result in the dissemination of information in the widest possible sense, imparting transparency and accountability to the judicial process,” the petition said.