[Breaking] E-committee on the anvil of finalising rules, creating infrastructure for live streaming of court proceedings: Justice DY Chandrachud

The e-committee of the Supreme Court is in the process of finalising rules and creating infrastructure for live streaming of court proceedings in court across the country, chairperson of e-committee, Justice DY Chandrachud said on Friday. .The pilot project regarding this has already been initiated by Gujarat High Court Chief Justice, Vikram Nath, the Supreme Court judge said. ."The e-committee today is on the anvil of finalising the rules for live streaming of proceedings. We are in the process of creating infrastructure for live streaming court proceedings all over the country," he said. .Anybody interested in watching it can go to YouTube and watch the proceedings before Gujarat High Court, he added. .Justice Chandrachud was speaking at the launch of new website for judgments and e-Filing. .It was necessary to create a framework for live streaming and we are in the process of finalising rules for live streaming, he stated. .Justice Chandrachud also assured that video conference hearings will not replace physical hearings.."We began video conferencing as the platform for answering the problems of pandemic, not to replace oral hearings but to ensure that courts were functional and available to those whose liberty and rights were being infringed during this period because we exists for common citizens," he said. He said that he had received concerns from Bar about video conference hearings replacing physical hearings. "Let me assuage to all members of Bar, for someone like me who holds everything to the Bar, nothing could be further from my mind than to replace the strength of open court system," he made it clear. .The Supreme Court has been hearing cases via video conference since March 23, 2020 after the outbreak of Covid-19. The top court had issued a circular on March 23 suspending entry of lawyers and litigants to the court premises and directing that only urgent cases will be taken up for hearing through video conferencing.The video conferencing is conducted by the court through ‘Vidyo app’ which can be downloaded on mobile phones and desktop..Various lawyers have been demanding that the Court reverts to full-fledged physical hearing with President of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Vikas Singh pitching strongly for the same. This was in response to a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) issued by the Court in March 2021 putting in place a hybrid system of hearing cases. Under the hybrid system, when a matter is heard in physical court, the parties/ lawyers will have the option to appear either physically or virtually..Supreme Court to commence limited hybrid physical hearings from March 15, 2021.The Court had earlier attempted to resume physical hearing in September 2020, but with little success.It had, in fact, modified the Court rooms and installed infrastructure to commence physical hearing in a limited way, but the same was met with a lukewarm response from the Bar.