Live streaming made court reach homes and hearts of common citizens: Supreme Court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday said live streaming of court proceedings has taken it to the homes and hearts of common citizens.

A five-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, said the court is trying to use technology to ensure the live-streamed content is made available simultaneously in languages other than English, while hearing arguments on the eighth-day on a clutch of petitions seeking legal sanction for same-sex marriage.

Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, representing the Madhya Pradesh government, said that there is a churning in society, which is an important fallout of the court proceedings and people in the country are thinking about the issue because of this debate and live streaming.

The bench - also comprising Justices S.K. Kaul, S.R. Bhat, Hima Kohli and P.S. Narasimha - said that live-streaming of court proceedings has really taken the court to the homes and to the hearts of the common citizens.

Dwivedi said the only hindrance is that arguments are in English, which is a language not understood by many people residing in villages. At this, the Chief Justice told him: "You will be surprised that we are working even on that also... even that is not lost on the Supreme Court on its administrative side.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Jamiat Ulama i Hind, said that now technology allows a person speaking in English to be heard in different languages including Japanese.

The Chief Justice said that the court is trying to use technology to ensure that the live streaming contents can be made available in languages which the citizens can follow.

The top court will continue to hear a batch of petitions seeking legal sanction for same sex marriages on Wednesday.