The Supreme Court has directed the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to ensure compliance with its directions while hearing a Public Interest Litigation seeking to restrain the unauthorised livestreaming and video circulation of court proceedings.

On July 24, 2026, the Court had barred any extraction, modification, dissemination, monetization, reposting, or uploading of judicial audio-video recordings on social media or digital platforms without the prior permission of the Secretary General of the Supreme Court or the Registrar General of the respective High Court.

The Court directed that necessary measures for taking action against those who fail to comply should also be incorporated in the policy regime. 

The Bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V Mohana ordered, "Suggestions given by the High Courts and interim orders are under consideration of the Ministry of MeitY where formulation of policy is under consideration. MeitY is directed to ensure the compliance of interim directions contained in para 9 of the order dated 1st July and as explained while subsequent order dated 9th October 2026. Necessary measures for taking action against those who fail to comply with the directions will also be incorporated in the policy regime."

Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi and Advocate Prashant Bhushan appeared for the Petitioner, while Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appeared for the Union of India

The Court was hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking to restrain the unauthorized livestreaming and video circulation of court proceedings.

Solicitor General Mehta submitted that suggestions had been received from various High Courts and lawyers in this matter, which have been provided to the Registry to formulate a proposal for consideration within a week to be placed on record ahead of the vacation.  

Bhushan suggested that with digital watermarking and cryptographic signing, every official clip released should be embedded with a verifiable digital signature watermark, enabling the public and platforms to authenticate genuine court footage against manipulated versions.

He said that this should be the sole authorized source so, all the proceedings of the court should be actually placed on a website, which is the court's website, which is fully watermarked and authenticated, so that anybody should be able to extract.

CJI Kant said, "That we are that we are doing separately on administrative side."

Justice Bagchi added, "Mr. Bhushan, we are also contemplating and in fact have placed some High Courts in order where you cannot make an extraction from the feed on the channel set up in YouTube for the court concerned. The difficulty is a person can easily make a duplication of that and then make an extraction. This proceeding would be uploaded in the official channel. You cannot extract from it. But you can contemporaneously make a photograph of the entire proceeding and then extract from it... The difficulty is the implementation part which we are requesting the MeitY and the concerned authority under the intermediary rules."

Bhushan suggested, "Actually, this is very easily solved by having an official website of the court where all the proceedings are stored and that should be authenticated by digital watermarking cryptographic signing... "

CJI Kant, "That's why in para 9, we have already imposed the rider of commercial exploit. What use is only commercial exploit."

Bhushan added, "This is a very vague thing as to what constitutes commercial exploitation. Let's say, there is a YouTuber who is doing his YouTube and he is doing a report about what has happened in this particular case and he wants to use a part of the official clip from the official court website."

Bagchi added, "That YouTuber will be duty-bound to take permission from the Secretary General of the Supreme Court."

On August 5, 2026, the Court had prohibited news outlets from using audio or video clips of court proceedings while reporting. The Apex Court clarified that its earlier order was not to be construed as imposing a blanket prohibition on the reporting of court proceedings by recognised news outlets.

The Court had also called upon the Union of India to place on record a proposal, formulated in consultation with the Nodal Ministries, to give effect to the prayers made in the instant petitions. The jurisdictional High Courts were further directed to file status reports on the adoption of the Model Rules for Live Streaming and Recording of Court Proceedings.

The Kerala High Court had also issued notice to an advocate in criminal contempt proceedings over the alleged unauthorised recording and broadcasting of court proceedings on social media, while also barring him from participating in any court proceedings in Kerala through online or virtual mode until further orders.

Accordingly, the matter was listed for a further date.

Cause Title: Harshita Grover v. Union of India & Ors. [W.P.(C) No. 751/2026]

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