Live Courtroom Streaming: How Indian High Courts Can Implement Court Live Stream

In a landmark judgment in 2018, the Supreme Court allowed Indian Courts to implement live court streaming. In the judgment, the apex court accepted that live streaming of courtroom trials would uphold the legitimacy of the judicial proceedings, enhance the effectiveness of the Indian judicial system, and hence boost public confidence in the judiciary.

Following this landmark judgment, many courts came forward with their initiatives to livestream courtroom proceedings via free-to-use streaming platforms like YouTube. However, these platforms provided little to no content security. Also, the courts did not have any significant control over who could watch the content and who could not. There was no setup to manage and archive the recordings of the live feed too.

To combat these limitations, the Supreme Court of India passed another statement, in which the judges agreed that live streaming via platforms like YouTube was a temporary arrangement. The Supreme Court felt the need for a more secure courtroom live-streaming setup which could give more control to the courts.

This statement led the courts in India to incline towards custom-curated Courtroom Live Audio-Visual Streaming Solutions (CLASS). Madhya Pradesh High Court’s live courtroom streaming solution is a major example of one such project, where the live streaming setup was implemented for all the courtrooms in the entire state for the first time in India.

Powered by LinqTV’s Courtroom Live Audio-Video Streaming Solution, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has successfully started live-streaming court trials for all 210 district and tehsil courts across the state.

In this blog, we will discuss how other Indian High Courts can also implement the Courtroom Live Audio-Visual Streaming Solution, along with audio-visual recording and archiving of the trials. So, let’s get started!

In India, live streaming of courtroom proceedings holds immense potential for transparency, accountability, and accessibility within the judicial system. As rightly pointed out by the Supreme Court of India, Live streaming can play a crucial role in increasing the faith of the public in the Indian Judiciary, as any common citizen can easily access the courtroom trials to understand and study the proceedings.

Let’s delve into some key reasons why Court Live Streaming is needed in India.

Court Live Streaming in India has an interesting and ongoing history. It all started with YouTube and a few selected hearings. However, with advanced technologies in place, this process has seen gradual progress in the recent past. And many ongoing discussions about its scope and implementation are promising a brighter future.

In recent years, mostly post-2022, CLASS has taken the central stage in courtroom live streaming in India. Let’s give you a bird’s eye view of what this CLASS solution is.

CLASS stands for “Courtroom Live Audio Visual Streaming Solution”. It ensures the collection of high-quality audio and video data from the