Jharkhand High Court To Live Stream Court's Proceedings On YouTube On Virtual Dates Of Hearing

The Jharkhand High Court on Tuesday decided to live-stream its proceedings on Youtube on virtual dates of hearing starting from today. Viewers can watch the Live Streaming by clicking the LIVE Window in the menu bar of the website of the High Cout of Jharkhand.It may be noted that that the link available on the website will take one to the Youtube channel of the High Court, wherein one can watch the live court proceedings (of Court numbers 12 and 10). The live proceedings will be live-streamed only on virtual dates of hearing.A notice to this effect has been issued by the Registrar General of the High Court which reads as follows:"Please take notice that the LIVE Streaming of the Court's Proceeding of Court No.12 and Court No. 10 on virtual dates of hearing only is going to be launched from 15.12.2021. Viewers can watch the Live Streaming by clicking the LIVE Window in the menu bar of the website of the High Cout of Jharkhand."With this, the Jharkhand High Court would become the sixth High Court in the Country to commence live streaming of Court proceedings on YouTube.It may be noted that after Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, and Orissa High Courts, recently, the Patna High Court had become the fifth High Court in the Country to commence live streaming of Court proceedings on YouTube. Earlier, the Gujarat High Court had started live streaming on Youtube "With a view to effectuating and broadening the implementation of Open Court concept even during the virtual hearings of the Court."Thereafter, the Karnataka High Court had decided to commence the live proceedings on youtube.While hearing a writ plea filed by 4 Journalists seeking media access to Court's Proceedings, the Madhya Pradesh High Court had in June 2021 decided to commence live streaming of its proceedings on youtube.It may be noted that the legal journalists, Nupur Thapliyal (Legal Correspondent, Live Law), Sparsh Upadhyay (Special Legal Correspondent, Live Law), Areeb Uddin Ahmed (Legal Correspondent), and Rahul Dubey (Legal Correspondent, Dainik Bhaskar) had moved a petition challenging the MP Video Conferencing & Audio-Visual Electronic Linkage Rules, 2020 to the extent they preclude 'third parties' from accessing virtual court proceedings and cause difficulty to media persons in real-time reporting on a public forum for citizens.With the vision to enhance accessibility and transparency, the Orissa High Court had commenced live streaming of court proceedings of the Court of Chief Justice in August 2021.Importantly, Justice Abhay Sreeniwas Oka, judge of the Supreme Court, recently supported the idea of live-streaming of court proceedings, while speaking at a function on Saturday.Highlighting that live streaming will increase the transparency of court proceedings, Justice Oka said, "I personally feel live streaming should be there in limited form in selected cases. Let us have transparency. Nothing wrong with transparency. If Parliamentary proceedings are live-streamed, why not court proceedings, of course with all the constraints".

Jharkhand High Court To Live Stream Court's Proceedings On YouTube On Virtual Dates Of Hearing

Sparsh Upadhyay

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