The Gujarat High Court emphasized the need for periodic deletion of online court hearing videos. This comes after a litigant used livestream transcripts as evidence, violating the court’s prescribed rules. The court stressed that such materials should not be misused in legal proceedings. This ruling reinforces the importance of regulated access to judicial recordings.
Gujarat : A Division Bench of the Gujarat High Court urged Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal on Tuesday to remove livestreamed court hearing videos from YouTube after a specified duration.
Justices A.S. Supehia and Gita Gopi stated that the final decision rests with the Chief Justice.
The Court remarked,
“We believe that the videos of the court proceedings should be removed from YouTube after a specific period. However, we leave this to the discretion of the Hon’ble Chief Justice. The Registry is directed to inform the Hon’ble Chief Justice regarding this matter,”
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This observation came as the Court addressed concerns regarding advocate Deepak Khosla and his client, the Gujarat Operational Creditors Association, for using transcripts of livestreamed court hearings as evidence, which contravenes the rules established by the High Court. The Bench noted that Khosla had relied on unauthorized transcripts of the Court’s livestream recordings from YouTube.
This action was found to violate the Gujarat High Court (Live Streaming of Court Proceedings) Rules, 2021. The Court cautioned that any party using court proceedings as evidence could face proceedings under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971.
The Court concluded,
“The reliance placed on unauthorized transcripts by learned advocate Mr. Khosla needs to be deprecated and highly condemned, which we do,”
The Bench was considering an application from the Gujarat Operational Creditors Association, which had made disparaging remarks about at least three High Court judges and accused senior lawyers of contempt of court.
The Association and its counsel, Advocate Khosla, expressed objections to the repeated extensions of an interim stay order that was initially issued on August 8 of the previous year. This order had been extended multiple times, even after a request was made to vacate it. Khosla argued that these extensions violated Supreme Court directives.
Consequently, an application was submitted to initiate contempt proceedings against senior lawyers representing Arcelor Mittal Nippon Steel India, who had sought the extensions of the interim order.
After Justices Sangeeta Vishen and Vaibhavi D. Nanavati recused themselves from the case, Khosla also accused them of judicial indiscipline. Similar allegations were directed at Justice Nikhil S. Kariel, the next judge assigned to the matter.
During the proceedings, Khosla relied on transcripts from the Court’s livestreamed recordings available on YouTube, submitting a 259-page audio transcript as part of the application.
However, the High Court was unimpressed and dismissed the application, imposing a cost of Rs.2 lakhs on Khosla’s client for wasting the Court’s time, deeming the contempt application as “an epitome of frivolity.”
The Court further cautioned against the use of videos from livestreamed court hearings as evidence and recommended that these be removed from YouTube after a specified period.
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