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Dinesh (SW)     12 April 2011

Can i use spy video camera or voice recorder in court?

In trial of any case can i use spy video camera or voice recorder ? Is it legal ? If yes can i use without permission of anybody. This is only for my personal purpose not for news agency.

 

Please advice.

 

And also is there any other technology or method through which i can strong my case.



Learning

 12 Replies

Dibakar Ray (Advocate.)     12 April 2011

No, You can not do that. Any proceedings in the court can only be published or recorded with the Express permission of the learned court.

If found the violation, you will be liable for contempt of court.

Dinesh (SW)     12 April 2011

Thanks for your quick response. I know the filed case is a false case and definitely all the witness will tell some false story in trial. So i thought to record it and get some more clue out of it.

Any other sugession for it. The case is related to 498A and 502. But the actual cause is suicide(cause is unknown till now but there was no single incident of dowry ).

Dinesh (SW)     12 April 2011

Sorry its 302 not 502

adv. rajeev ( rajoo ) (practicing advocate)     12 April 2011

whatever they depose before the court, whether it may be truth or false, it will be in the court records, you can obtain the certified copy of the depositions.
 

Tajobsindia (Senior Partner )     12 April 2011

@ Author

1.
Write a Letter cum Application to CJ of your State via Chief Registrar stating such needs.


2. Till date no such denial nor approval has come forth as precedent in procedural law so someone needs to create precedent. To the best of my knowledge only two known Applications in
Bangalore and Delhi HC are pending. Hence why not you create from your State a precedent for general public?


However I per se found your reasoning vague as all witness statements are recorded and are material records of the court whose certified copy you can always take s so what so special you are going to get using such medias as mentioned in your briefs! NOTHING other than their body language is it not so ? 

Democratic Indian (n/a)     12 April 2011

In my view it would not amount to contempt of court(copy of Contempt of Courts Act 1971 is available at https://www.vakilno1.com/bareacts/contemptact/contemptact.htm) if the proceedings are being done in an open court. In an open court all members of public are allowed to capture the proceedings of courts with their eyes and ears and store the information thus collected in their minds(they are excersising Freedom of Speech and Expression guaranteed by Article 19(1)(a) and Liberty guaranteed by Article 21 of Constitution). If you are using a camera to record and store such information in order to aid and refresh your your memory at a later time, you are not causing any contempt of court, rather you are excersising Freedom of Speech and Expression and Liberty guaranteed by Constitution of India. Will be glad to listen different opinions of learned members of forum.

1 Like

Hemant Agarwal (ha21@rediffmail.com Mumbai : 9820174108)     12 April 2011

1.  Court proceedings are governed by the rules of the Court Act.  Even the judge does not have jurisdiction to allow video recording of the court proceedings, of whatever nature it may be.


2.  Some of the Certain rules forbade to sit cross legged in the Court room, Talking or clapping during court in progress.  All this amounts to Contempt of Court and are instantly punishable (variable) at the discretion of the presiding judge.


3.  Rerely,  High profile & High security  cases are allowed to be conducted via video conferancing, but with the express orders of the Chief Justices of the respective courts.  Again this is not viewable by the general public or the media.

 

4.  However, in Movie setups /studio's,  video recording of the court proceedings are permitted and over here you can exercise the Freedom of Speech and Expression guaranteed by Article 19(1)(a) and Liberty guaranteed by Article 21 of Constitution of India.


Perssonally, I feel that the author and other participating members may atleast experiment and let us know of the consequences (whatever)


Keep Smiling .... Hemant Agarwal

1 Like

Democratic Indian (n/a)     13 April 2011

"1.  Court proceedings are governed by the rules of the Court Act.  Even the judge does not have jurisdiction to allow video recording of the court proceedings, of whatever nature it may be."

Can you please enlighten the forum where it is barred or prohibited from doing silent/non distrurbing audio/video recording of proceedings of open court of law?


"2.  Some of the Certain rules forbade to sit cross legged in the Court room, Talking or clapping during court in progress.  All this amounts to Contempt of Court and are instantly punishable (variable) at the discretion of the presiding judge"

Talking, clapping can interrupt proceedings of court(hence not Freedom of Speech/Expression/Liberty). How can this be compared with silent/non disturbing audio/video recordings of court?

 


"3.  Rerely,  High profile & High security  cases are allowed to be conducted via video conferancing, but with the express orders of the Chief Justices of the respective courts.  Again this is not viewable by the general public or the media."

Video conferencing is not equal to silent/non disturbing video recording.


"4.  However, in Movie setups /studio's,  video recording of the court proceedings are permitted and over here you can exercise the Freedom of Speech and Expression guaranteed by Article 19(1)(a) and Liberty guaranteed by Article 21 of Constitution of India."

Are you trying to say that Freedom of Speech and Expression guaranteed by Article 19(1)(a) and Liberty guaranteed by Article 21 of Constitution of India is not allowed within the premises of open court of law OR audio/video recording does not come under Freedom of Speech and Expression guaranteed by Article 19(1)(a) and Liberty guaranteed by Article 21 of Constitution of India.

RAKHI BUDHIRAJA ADVOCATE (LAWYER AT BUDHIRAJA & ASSOCIATES SUPREME COURT OF INDIA)     23 April 2011

NO. U CAN'T

Democratic Indian (n/a)     25 April 2011

Rakhi ji can you please give some specific laws/rules/reason/s why he can't record proceedings without disturbing the court? After all if it is an open court where lies the problem? In interest of openness and transparency, many democratic countries transmit live proceedings of court on TV.

J.P.S.Dahiya (Chaiman)     20 July 2011

In my opinion audio recording can be done within the court premises but outside court room

Hemant Agarwal (ha21@rediffmail.com Mumbai : 9820174108)     10 August 2011

Looks like the Courts have been reading my posts in this forum.  Here's one example :

 

No audio-video recording of court proceedings: Delhi HC
reproduced from  Hindustan Times, New Delhi edition dated 10-08-2011 @ page no. 06.

 

In a setback to supporters of greater transparency in working of judiciary, the Delhi high court on Tuesday dismissed a plea for permitting lawyers and litigants to audio and video record court proceedings in high court and subordinate courts. "An effort has been made to give sermon in the name of transparency. An individual sermon cannot attain status of lawsuch a direction cannot be issued in the absence of legislative enactment," a bench of chief justice Dipak Misra and justice Sanjiv Khanna said, adding, petitioner Deepak Khosla, a businessman, did not have a "legal right" in this regard.

 

The court also disallowed him a "certificate to appeal in the Supreme Court" saying, "It does not involve a substantial question of law of general importance". Khosla who is fighting nearly 20 cases in the court said: "It will make court proceedings more transparent. All parties — the litigant, opposite party and the judge can be made accountable to what transpires in court and they shall not go back on their words. Human memory is fallible."    "If we really wanted our judiciary to be accountable to all and to demonstrate transparency in how it arrives at its decisions, we need to adopt audio recording of all proceedings," he said.

 

Interestingly, while referring Khosla's plea to the chief justice's bench, justice SN Dhingra of the court (now retired) had said on February 28 this year that the "step will also be deterrent against judges who do not come to courts on time as then there will be evidence against in this regard in the form of CDs and cassettes".

 

Khosla had created a stir in the court on April 8 last year when he succeeded in taping at least 100 minutes of hearing of his case before the court before the judges ordered seizure of the recorder.


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