Media can report, but not record and share, judicial proceedings: Supreme Court

This apparently led to confusion, with some online news and law portals continuing to upload video clips of court proceedings as part of their reportage.

Taking note, the Supreme Court said in its July 31 order, made available on Tuesday, “It appears…that some confusion persists in respect of paragraph 11 of the earlier order, which this Court deems necessary to clarify. The said paragraph makes it clear that the order is not to be construed as imposing a blanket prohibition on the reporting of court proceedings by recognised news outlets. Such outlets may, therefore, continue to report on the proceedings and inform the general public of legal developments and judicial pronouncements, save that audio or video clips of the court proceedings shall not be utilised in the course of such reportage. In sum, while news outlets may continue to report on the court proceedings, they shall nonetheless remain bound by the restrictions set out in paragraph 10.”

Interim order ‘for social media or any other digital platforms’

Paragraph 10 of the July 24 order stated, “As an interim measure, it is directed that there shall be no extraction, dissemination, monetisation, posting, re-posting, uploading, transmitting, modification, storing, or hosting of the audio-video recording(s) of the judicial proceedings on social media or any other digital platforms without prior permission of the Secretary General of the Supreme Court of India or the Registrar Generals of the jurisdictional High Courts”.

The Supreme Court had also asked the central government to submit a proposal regarding the nodal ministries to give effect to the prayers made in the petition. It also made all high courts besides LinkedIn, Meta, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Google, X Corp., and YouTube parties to the petition and sought their responses.

By its July 31 order, the court granted them four more weeks to file their responses.