Bhubaneswar: Several law students and petitioners in Gujarat had a heave a sigh of relief when the Gujarat High Court recently started live-streaming their court proceedings for the world to see.
However, most of the high courts in India, including the Orissa High Court, are shy to ‘open courts’ and telecasting its proceedings. During the pandemic-related lockdown, the Orissa High Court moved to video conferencing for the hearing of cases – a paradigm shift from the physical courts.
According to lawyers practicing at the Orissa HC, the proceedings at the HC progressed faster and also were better during the online hearing of cases. However, still there are several bottlenecks that create hurdles in court proceedings and also irk the judges and lawyers.
“The proceedings at the HC have progressed during the on online hearing and it must be appreciated. The court sends a link to about 10 parties, which becomes dysfunctional once the hearings are over. This helps in avoiding overcrowding at the courts and has made the video conferencing easier,” a lawyer told Orissa POST requesting anonymity.
He, however, added, “On several occasions, many parties and their lawyers disrupt the proceedings when their voice/video suddenly pops up during the hearing. While such things are unintentional on their parts, it often irks the judges as well as the lawyers.”
Lack of awareness regarding online hearings and use of the technique has also added to the woes. The lawyers, however, appreciate the fact that the alternative arrangement during pandemic helped many parties as well as lawyers to join the hearings from across the state, reducing their cost of travel and also avoiding exposure to others during the pandemic.
“Another advantage of holding online hearings in the HC was that the petitioner was able to sit with his/her lawyers during their case and see the case proceedings. In physical courts, petitioners often find it tough to analyse their case minutely owing to overcrowding and chaos,” another lawyer said.
However, till now, the Orissa HC has not allowed the lawyers or anyone else to record its proceedings or share them anywhere. On the contrary, the proceedings at Gujarat HC are telecast live and are also available on Youtube.
In fact, the Supreme Court too had favoured live streaming of its case hearings for the public. A special committee was formed to study its feasibility and the committee is now ready to submit its report to the apex court. If the feasibility report of the panel is approved, it is likely that proceedings in the HC and lower courts may be streamed live.
On the other side, lawyers had to face the brunt of making any part of the video conferencing exercise public during the pandemic. Recently, a contempt of court case was filed against a lawyer in Calcutta High Court for sharing the screen shots of an online court hearing.
The Orissa High Court has been using Jitsi Meet application for online hearings and has issued a detailed guideline for joining such online hearings, including a ban on recording and telecasting its proceedings.
Manish Kumar, OP
