Recording court proceedings without permission ended with a seized phone and Rs 10,000 in costs for a courtroom spectator, and a warning from the Bombay High Court that a repeat will invite contempt proceedings.
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Mumbai: A phone with its flash on, held at the back of the courtroom during a hearing, led the Bombay High Court to take suo motu notice, order the device confiscated and direct its owner to deposit Rs 10,000 with the High Court Legal Services Authority within two weeks, with a caution that any recurrence will invite contempt action [High Court on its own motion v. Dilip Wagh].
The order was passed by a Division Bench of Justices G. S. Kulkarni and Dr. Neela Gokhale.
Confiscation, costs and a compliance date
The handset is to be confiscated. Its personal data will be removed under a certified panchnama by the Registrar and an IT officer, after which the device is to be disposed of as per law. Wagh has two weeks to pay Rs 10,000 to the Secretary of the High Court Legal Services Authority; if he does not, the amount may be recovered from his salary. The matter will come up for compliance on October 19, 2026 at 3:00 p.m.
A flashlight in the last row
Someone seated at the rear of the courtroom caught the Bench’s attention with a phone whose flashlight was switched on, apparently filming the hearing. Court staff took the phone and sent it to the IT Department for examination. The man gave his name as Dilip Wagh, said he works in an Education Inspector’s office, and, as the Bench noted, had no case of his own before it.
The order records that Wagh first denied recording anything and wiped the video, though IT officials were able to recover it. In the Bench’s reading, how quickly he deleted it showed that he knew filming was not allowed.
The Bench’s concern
Such incidents, the Bench noted, are becoming more frequent, and recordings are later doctored and put out on social media. The doors of the Court are open to all, it said, but everyone who walks in must follow basic norms. The order restates that nobody may record, share or disseminate proceedings without authorisation, and that doing so is an offence under the Copyright Act, 1957.
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Why the order matters
Hearings that are filmed can be edited and shared out of context, which is why courts have been growing stricter about it. The Bench here acted on its own motion and went beyond a warning, pairing confiscation of the device with a monetary cost and a contempt caution.
The order also makes clear that a spectator gets no exemption: someone with no case before the Court is held to the same rules, and the data on a seized device is cleared only through a documented, supervised process.
Case Title: High Court on its own motion v. Dilip Wagh [Suo Motu (St) No. 29396 of 2026]
Bench: Justices G. S. Kulkarni and Dr. Neela Gokhale, Bombay High Court
Date of Order: October 5, 2026
Appearances: B.V. Samant and A.R. Deolekar, Additional Government Pleaders, for the State; Prajakta Dhane, Deputy Registrar, E-Court Project