Supreme Court contemplates on live streaming of Ayodhya hearing

New Delhi: The Supreme Court asked its Registry on Monday to inform it whether live streaming of the ongoing hearing in the Ram Janmbhoomi-Babri masjid land dispute case was possible.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi also asked the Registry to apprise it as to how much time it would take to do so, if possible.

Senior advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for former RSS ideologue K N Govindacharya, said the petitioners have faith in the apex court but many petitioners, in this case, cannot come to the court to take part in the hearing on daily basis. As they cannot watch proceedings here, live proceedings will help them to know about details of the hearing, Singh said.

After the bench passed the order, Singh sought to know from the bench about the deadline of the report from Registry. The bench, however, said it depends on Registry.

On September 6, a bench headed by Justices R F Nariman had referred the plea to the bench headed by the Chief Justice.

Govindacharya, in his plea filed through lawyer Virag Gupta, has said that if live telecast of the Ayodhya case proceedings was not possible then at least, audio recording or transcription of hearing should be done.

Singh referred to the September 26, 2018 verdict of the apex court which had allowed live-streaming of court proceedings of cases of constitutional and national importance, saying this openness was like "sunlight" which is the "best disinfectant".

The plea has said the top court was hearing the Ayodhya matter even on miscellaneous days Fridays and Mondays which shows that it was dealing with the matter extraordinarily and therefore, audio-recording could be "started immediately".

The five-judge bench is hearing the Ayodhya case from August 6 on a day-to-day basis to decide the politically-sensitive land dispute, after the efforts to arrive at an amicable settlement through mediation failed.