SC agrees to hear K N Govindacharya's plea for live streaming of Article 370 hearing

The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear former RSS ideologue K N Govindacharya's plea seeking live streaming of Constitution bench hearing of batch of pleas challenging abrogation of provisions of Article 370.

A bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices B R Gavai and Surya Kant said that the matter will be listed for early hearing, after senior advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for Govindacharya said that despite filing of the application 15-days back, their plea has not been listed. Singh along with advocate Virag Gupta said that from December 10 a five-judge constitution bench is scheduled to hear a batch of pleas challenging abrogation of the Article 370 provisions.

Govindacharya had earlier filed writ petition seeking enforcement of apex court's verdict of September 26, 2018, in which it had directed for live streaming of matters of national importance. He had said in his plea that his first application had sought live streaming of the politically sensitive Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid title dispute case but the top court on September 16, had ordered the apex court registry to submit a report to the Court specifying as what time would be taken to make the system operational.

"That the Registry failed to comply with the above Order of the Court as it did not provide the report in time. The judgment in the Ayodhya Ram Temple case was pronounced on November 9. To the best of the knowledge of the Petitioner, the Registry has not submitted a report until date," he said in his fresh application. 

Govindacharya has claimed in his plea that live streaming is an important step to ensure transparency and accountability. 

"The Constitution Bench is set to hear arguments in...and other connected matters, which pertain to challenge to abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution. It is submitted that this matter is a momentous matter, whose proceedings can be considered to be live streamed/video recorded/audio recorded/transcripted on a pilot basis," his plea said.

It said that the matters relating to Article 370 are very important and are covered widely by the Indian as well as the international media. 

"In absence of accurate information being officially released by this Court, the proceedings may be susceptible to misreporting," he said.