The Supreme Court of India has released the official statistics for first day of live streaming of cases.
In a first of its kind, three separate Constitution Bench proceedings were simultaneously beamed live through Youtube today.
The Public relations office of Supreme Court said that as per the Statistics more than eight lakh viewers watched the proceedings before the three Constitution Benches. Truly, a historic day.
As per the records the maximum views came on bench hearing the Maharashtra political crisis with nearly 4 lakh views.
The Constitution Benches were led by Chief Justice U.U. Lalit, Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Sanjay Kishan Kaul, respectively.
Justice Chandrachud, who is current the chairperson of the court’s e-committee and the driving force behind the livestreaming project, began the hearing in his courtroom with an announcement that “we are virtual”.
The technical team was closely monitoring the livestreaming of the court. There was not a single interruption in the telecast the whole day.
The PR office of Supreme Court said that this step will go a long way in overcoming the barriers of distance and shall provide opportunity to citizen to watch proceedings of Supreme Court from every nook and corner of the country.
The statement added that this is a humble beginning. Attempts will now bemade to livestream proceedings in all important matters before it becomes the order of the day,” the statement assured.
The cases which were being heard included the challenge to the 10% quota for economically weaker sections of the society before the Chief Justice’s Constitution Bench.
Another very prominent and interesting case was heard by the bench of Justice Chandrachud Bench which was spat between Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s faction and the Uddhav Thackeray camp over who was the “real” Shiv Sena party.
Another Constitution bench with Justice Kaul heard the challenge to the All India Bar Examination – a post-enrollment exam for lawyers.
A Full Court meeting of apex court judges on September 20 had resolved to livestream Constitution Bench hearings from September 27.
The trigger came with a recent letter from senior advocate Indira Jaising to livestream important case hearings, especially those being heard by Constitution Benches.