NEW DELHI: Aiming to bring more transparency in court proceedings, Congress MP Rajeev Satav has moved a bill proposing recording of all Supreme Court proceedings and making them available online to the public.
The bill states that all proceedings should be uploaded on a specially created website for this purpose. Presently, the proceedings are available in the public domain in text format after each hearing.
The Right to Access of Judicial Proceedings and Information Bill 2016 seeks digital recording of the court proceedings and making them available online. However, as the proceedings are lengthy and the arguments involved complex, the rationale behind the judgment becomes difficult for the common man to understand.
Satav said some of the expressions of the opposing view to the bench are lost in plain text format. “Adding two more sensory sources of information—audio and video--will increase the effectiveness as well as the speed of dissemination of legal information, both to the legal fraternity as well as common public at large,” he added.
The move will enhance the faith and respect of the common man for the judiciary.
As per the bill, the central government after consulting with the chief justice, should establish a ‘Supreme Court Secretariat’. The secretariat would work under overall supervision of the chief justice and the government would appoint officers and employees to ensure effective implementation of the provisions of the bill, it added.
The bill also proposes to create a database of audio-visual archives within 24 hours of any hearing, including the name of the judge, parties involved, date of hearing, chamber number, case number and case type.
In August, the Supreme Court had favoured the installation of CCTV cameras in all courts to facilitate audio-video recordings of proceedings. It observed that constitutional courts in other countries have such recordings and the US Supreme Court proceedings are even available on YouTube.
Law Ministry for litigation check
To minimise litigation, the Ministry of Law and Justice has written to all ministries stating that if any of the central ministries seeks to bring in a new law, then it should assess whether there is any possibility of any litigation in future. The focus is to ensure that laws do not attract court cases.
The ministries will also have to ensure that the new law or amendment to an existing act does not lead to an increase in litigation. A note written by Minister of State for Law P P Chaudhary to his senior minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and the Cabinet Secretariat stated, “All proposed bills should also focus on alternative dispute resolution to ensure that disputes arising out of laws are settled out-of-court.” If the government accepts the suggestion, then all future bills placed in Parliament would carry a ‘litigation assessment’ clause.