Kerala High Court Advocates Association gives inputs on SC draft Rules for live-streaming; flags Data Protection, Witness Protection, Privacy

The Kerala High Court Advocates' Association(KHCAA) has given its suggestions to the Draft Rules on Live Streaming and Recording of Court proceedings (draft rules) framed by the e-committee of the Supreme Court. .At the outset, KHCAA stated that the legal fraternity and citizens have welcomed the directions issued by the Supreme Court in Swapnil Tripathi Vs Supreme Court of India and ors. wherein the Court observed that “while providing virtual access of live Court proceedings to one and all, it will effectuate the right of access to justice or right to open justice and public trial, right to know the developments of law and including the right of justice at doorsteps of litigants”..However, they observed that the right of the public to witness court proceedings do occasionally come in conflict with the valuable right to privacy of the parties especially in cases where the personal and private details of citizens come to the fore for adjudication. While the Rules do provide for maintaining balance in this regard, they noted that certain provisions in the draft rules still suffer from vagueness resulting in multiple interpretations and likelihood of misuse and abuse of the provisions. In this regard, the KHCAA highlighted one particular aspect - that the draft rules provide recording of proceedings even when the Court declines the streaming of Court proceedings. "In such cases, there should be provisions in the rules for the protection of personal data and there should be provisions in the rules to ensure that the data recorded by the Court should not be leaked or hacked under any circumstances," the KHCAA suggested. .The KHCAA made the following suggestions regarding the draft rules. Where the cases are not live streamed, video recordings of the proceedings shall be made for the exclusive use of the Court and for the Appellate courts if and when the case may reach appellate stage.Rules shall ensure that in criminal matters sufficient provision for witness protection be made by providing for recording via dummy names, face-masking, pixilation and/or electronic distortion of voice. In cases involving celebrities in criminal matters, the court shall ensure that there is no live streaming. The decision of the presiding officer or the Court overruling objection against live streaming, as provided for in the Rules, should be made justiciable. In case of overruling of such objection, court shall adjourn the case for short period to enable the objector to avail remedy against the overruling of objection before the appellate forum.The Rules provide for the control room in every Court to monitor proceedings and ensure nothing "uncivil or inappropriate” is streamed in the public domain. However, this appears to be vague and open to interpretation by the technical team at the control room.The Rule provides that there will be a delay of ten minutes in the transmission of the live-stream. This lacks clarity as well and is tantamount to giving arbitrary power to the dedicated control room to edit court proceedings at their whims and fancies.In India at present there is no data protection law in place and it is necessary to provide for data protection. Since all recordings are to be saved for at least six months under Rule 7.4, there is a need for clarity as to how this data should be secured.The Rules also apply to District courts and subordinate courts. Therefore, it should be ensured that technical assistance and training must be provided to all involved in the process to enable successful implementation of live streaming..Supreme Court E-committee releases draft Model Rules for live-streaming, recording of court proceedings; invites suggestions from stakeholders.The e-committee of the Supreme Court of India had, on June 7, released the Draft Model Rules for Live-Streaming and Recording of Court Proceedings on public domain, inviting inputs and suggestions from all stakeholders.The Model Rules were framed by a sub-committee consisting of judges of the Bombay, Delhi, Madras and Karnataka High Courts."The sub-committee has held extensive deliberations. It took into account the principles enunciated in the decision of the Supreme Court in Swapnil Tripathi v Supreme Court of India [(2018) 10 SCC 639] including the concerns of privacy and confidentiality of litigants and witnesses, matters relating to business confidentiality, prohibition or restriction of access to proceedings or trials stipulated by Central or State legislation and in some cases to preserve the larger public interest owing to the sensitivity of the case," a press release issued in this regard said.E-committee chairperson Justice DY Chandrachud wrote to Chief Justices of all High Courts, calling for their inputs and suggestions..[Read Representation]