Transcription Of Live Streaming Court Proceedings Can’t Be Treated As Authorized Version; It's An Inadmissible Evidence: Gujarat HC In Contempt Case
The Gujarat High Court was deciding an Application seeking conviction of the Respondents along with the Advocates representing them under the Contempt of Courts Act.
The Gujarat High Court in a contempt case, held that the use of transcription of live streaming Court proceedings cannot be treated as authorized/certified/official version of anything relating to the Court proceedings and the same cannot be allowed to be treated as evidence of anything relating to the Court proceedings and will also be inadmissible.
The Court held thus in an Application seeking conviction of the Respondents along with the Advocates representing them under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1947.
A Division Bench comprising Justice A.S. Supehia and Justice Gita Gopi observed, “… the use of transcription of live streaming court proceedings cannot be treated as authorized/certified/official version of anything relating to the Court proceedings and 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 the mandate of Rules will invite proceedings under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971. Thus, formulation of the transcripts by the applicant from the live streamed videos runs contrary to the mandate of Rule 5 of the aforesaid Rules, and hence, reliance placed on the unauthorized transcripts by learned advocate Mr.Khosla needs to be deprecated and highly condemned, which we do.”
The Bench explained that the Gujarat High Court (Live Streaming of Court Proceedings) Rules, 2021 prohibit “content” and “observation made in the videos” and that the transcripts are derivative from the videos of court proceedings, and they will fall within the ambit of “contents” and “observations”.
Advocates Deepak Khosla and Jaydeep M. Shukla represented the Applicant while Senior Advocate Mihir Joshi and Advocate Keyur Gandhi represented the Respondents.
Facts of the Case
The Applicant alleged and prayed for initiating the contemptuous actions against the Respondents and their Advocates. The first contemptuous action, which was alleged to have occurred on September 30, 2024, pertained to the appearance of the Senior Advocate Mihir Joshi, who was joined and supported on his demand by other Senior Advocates Mihir Thakore and Rashesh Sanjanwala, by alleging that only one senior counsel is permitted to appear in the matter per party and they have appeared on instructions of the Advocate-on-Record (AOR) i.e. Advocate Keyur Gandhi in violation of the ratio of the judgment passed by three Judges Bench in the Case of District Development Officer v. Maniben Virabhai (2000).
Similarly, other five contemptuous actions were alleged by the Applicant. Thus, in nutshell, the case of the Applicant was that the Interim Order passed in a Writ Petition being Special Civil Application No.11679 of 2024 was extended at the request made by the Advocates appearing on behalf of the Respondent - Company, despite an Application filed by the Applicant of vacating Interim Order under the provisions of Article 226 (3) of the Constitution of India.
Court’s Observations
The High Court in the above context of the case, noted, “As we have previously recorded, the present application is epitome of frivolity. Instead of taking a legal and valid recourse of assailing the orders passed by the learned Single Judges in passing the interim 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 Court said that serious allegations/aspirations have been cast on the Senior Advocates, Advocates as well as the Single Judges of the High Court in the present proceedings.
“As mentioned hereinabove, there are more than 400 pages, including the memo of the application, which runs into 111 pages incorporating the transcriptions of live-streamed proceedings on the YouTube. Learned advocate Mr.Khosla has strenuously tried to impress this Court by referring to these transcripts”, it also noted.
The Court further observed that Rule 5(e), (f) and (g) of the Rules do not allow live streamed videos of the Court proceedings as evidence of anything and will also not be considered admissible.
“Thus, the Rules prohibits any content of the live streamed videos to be used as authorized/certified/official version of “anything” relating to the Court proceedings”, it added.
The Court, therefore, concluded that the formulation of the transcripts by the Applicant from the live streamed videos, runs contrary to the mandate of Rule 5 of the said Rules, and hence, reliance placed on the unauthorized transcripts by Advocate Khosla needs to be deprecated and highly condemned.
Accordingly, the High Court left it to the discretion of Chief Justice whether the videos of the Court proceedings are required to be removed from the YouTube after a specific period.
Cause Title- Gujarat Operational Creditors Association Acting Through Priti Chaudhary v. Arcelor Mittal Nippon Steel India Ltd. & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2025:GUJHC:7382-DB)
Appearance:
Applicant: Advocates Deepak Khosla and Jaydeep M. Shukla.
Respondents: Senior Advocate Mihir Joshi, Advocates Keyur Gandhi, and Yash Dadhich.
