Live-streamed court proceedings not evidence, videos must be removed after specific period: HC

Ahmedabad, Feb 6 (PTI) The Gujarat High Court has emphasized transcripts derived from live-streamed court proceedings cannot be used as evidence as per rules, and recommended that videos of such recordings should be removed from YouTube after a specific period.

A division bench of Justices AS Supehia and Gita Gopi made these remarks in their order passed on February 4 in a contempt of court case involving steel giant ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India Ltd (AM/NS India).

The bench dismissed a contempt application filed by the Gujarat Operational Creditors Association (GOCA) seeking action against the company, its office-bearers and lawyers who represented the steel firm in the past, and imposed a cost of Rs 2 lakh on the petitioner.

It described the contempt application as "absolutely ill conceived, frivolous and filed with an ill-motive".

The contempt petition revolves around interim relief granted to the steel company in the past by a single Judge bench. The relief continued after two other judges recused themselves from hearing the matter.

Citing past verdicts of the Supreme Court as well as the Gujarat HC, the petitioner's counsel, Deepak Khosla, sought action against lawyers of AM/NS India for seeking the extension of the ad-interim order.

Khosla argued that asking the court to extend the interim order itself would amount to civil contempt as well as criminal one.

"The sum and substance of Khosla's arguments is that the request made by the learned advocates for extension of the ad-interim order dated August 2024 is contemptuous, and the learned single judges, before whom the matters were placed, should not have extended the ad-interim order," noted the bench.

To justify his contentions, Khosla relied on the transcriptions of the video recordings of the past proceedings of the courts. The same are transcribed from the proceedings, which are being live- streamed on YouTube.

While rejecting the contempt plea, the bench noted serious allegations have been made and aspersions cast on learned senior advocates as well as judges of the High Court in the present proceedings.

Terming the contempt plea as an "epitome of frivolity", the bench noted that instead of taking a legal and valid recourse against the past orders, "the present application appears to have been filed only for the sole reason of mortifying the learned advocates appearing for the respondents and the learned Single Judges".

The bench noted that in order to substantiate the allegations against the judges and advocates, the applicant (GOCA) has produced transcripts running into more than 250 pages.

The court observed use of such live videos itself is a contempt of court.

"The use of transcription of live-streaming court proceedings cannot be treated as authorized/ certified/official version of anything relating to the court proceedings. The same cannot be allowed to be treated as evidence of anything relating to the court proceedings and will also be inadmissible, and violation of HC rules," it asserted.

The bench noted the contempt application is absolutely "ill conceived, frivolous and is filed with an ill-motive" to demean the learned single Judges and the learned advocates appearing for the respondents (AM/NS India), and hence it deserves to be rejected by imposing exemplary costs.

The HC imposed a cost of Rs 2 lakh on the petitioner under Rule 21 of the Contempt of Courts (Gujarat High Court) Rules, 1984. The court directed the petitioner to deposit the sum in two weeks from the date of pronouncement of this judgment.

About the issue of live-streaming, the bench said, "We are of the opinion that the videos of the court proceedings are required to be removed from YouTube after a specific period. However, we leave it at the discretion of the (HC) Chief Justice. Registry is directed to apprise the honourable Chief Justice in this regard." PTI PJT PD RSY

Source: PTI