SC on trial recordings

Advocate Tulsi from Punjab had challenged the order of Punjab and Haryana High Court dismissing his petition seeking information on cases languishing for years, reports B Sinha.

The Supreme Court on Friday said it would examine a plea for starting audio or video recording of proceedings in courts so that verbal arguments during a hearing could be treated as reference to the case.

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A bench headed by Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan and Justice RV Ravindran, while dismissing a petition seeking direction to high courts to amend their rules for prioritising cases, permitted the petitioner’s lawyer Prashant Bhushan to move a separate application to another petition filed recently in connection with measures needed for judicial reforms.

Advocate Tulsi from Punjab had challenged the order of Punjab and Haryana High Court dismissing his petition seeking information on cases languishing for years. The Supreme Court had earlier directed the lower courts to conclude the cases within a fixed time schedule. Tulsi had sought information regarding these cases under the Right To Information Act.

About allowing video recording in courts the bench said, “We will consider it in another petition relating to judicial reforms.”

Tulsi’s advocate Prashant Bhushan, however, argued that video recording of court proceedings would introduce greater transparency in judicial proceedings. “It would give an opportunity to litigating parties to recall the proceedings of the last hearing and ascertain the arguments that were advanced. It has happened on so many occasions that lawyers argument are either misinterpreted by a judge or a witness’s statement is not recorded correctly,” Bhushan said.