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HomeJudiciaryOver 7 lakh watch as SC starts live-streaming hearings. 'Real' Sena tussle...

Over 7 lakh watch as SC starts live-streaming hearings. ‘Real’ Sena tussle rakes in most views

Other proceedings live-streamed included hearing on 103rd Constitutional Amendment and challenge to All India Bar Exam. Blow to team Thackeray, no stay on ECI hearing Shinde’s plea.

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New Delhi: Four years after the Supreme Court passed an order to allow live-streaming of cases of national and constitutional importance, three proceedings were telecast live Tuesday.

By the end of the day (5 pm), more than 7 lakh viewers had logged on to the National Informatics Centre’s (NIC’s) YouTube webcast to watch the proceedings, court officials told ThePrint.

All three benches that presided over the live proceedings included five judges each.

The first constitution bench was led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) U.U. Lalit. This bench had been constituted seven days earlier to hear the challenge to the 103rd Constitutional Amendment, which introduced 10 per cent reservation for economically weaker sections of society in education and public employment.

On Tuesday, which was the first day when the hearing of the case was live-streamed, the court reserved its verdict after all parties in the matter wrapped up their arguments.

According to SC officials, the total viewership on this page was more than 2.75 lakh, while the peak concurrent or live viewership exceeded 4,500.

The Justice D.Y. Chandrachud-led bench, assigned to hear matters arising out of the split in the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, had the maximum viewership, with over 4 lakh viewers and live viewership of more than 9,000.

The bench Tuesday decided an interim application filed by the Uddhav Thackeray-led faction, seeking to restrain the Election Commission of India (ECI) from hearing the Eknath Shinde group’s ‘real’ Shiv Sena plea.

After a six-hour hearing, the bench dismissed Thackeray’s application and said there would be no stay on the ECI hearing Shinde’s plea.

The third bench, led by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, began hearing the challenge to the All India Bar Examination, a post-enrolment exam for advocates held by the Bar Council of India the apex disciplinary body for legal profession and education. This channel had more than 1 lakh viewers, while the live viewership was more than 1,140.


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More cases coming up

The decision to live-stream constitution bench matters was taken on 20 September by the full Supreme Court, comprising all judges. However, it was in the last week of August that the apex court officially telecast its first proceedings. The move was, however, confined to the proceedings of a ceremonial bench on the last day of then CJI N.V. Ramana’s court.

Supreme Court officials told ThePrint that, as of now, the proceedings will be live telecast through the YouTube channel of NIC Webcast and not on the top court’s official YouTube page.

“We have Cisco system for our online hearings, and we are providing the feed from there to NIC, which in turn uploads it on its YouTube channel,” said one of the officials.

Other constitutional bench cases that are likely to be live-streamed include challenges to the demonetisation exercise carried out in 2016, religious practice of excommunication in the Dawoodi Bohra community, court’s power to dissolve marriages on the grounds of irretrievable breakdown, the central government’s petition on enhanced compensation for victims of the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy, and the dispute between the AAP government in Delhi and Lieutenant-Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena on who controls services in the Capital.

(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)


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