As Gujarat HC starts livestreaming, two judges stay away

AHMEDABAD: As the Gujarat high court started livestreaming of all court proceedings on Monday, two judges stayed away from making their court proceedings live on YouTube.
The HC is the first court in the country to make the proceedings accessible to all through livestreaming as the courts are functioning through virtual mode only since the Covid-19 pandemic set in last year. While 26 judges chose to go on live through the web and live streaming of 21 different benches took place on Monday, the proceedings in the courts of Justice Umesh Trivedi and Justice Ilesh Vora were not livestreamed.
Sources said that one of the judges had refused to give consent to livestreaming of his court proceedings. The livestreaming of court proceedings takes place in those benches which are willing for the same. The concerned official refused to comment on the absence of two benches and said that the department was livestreaming only those feeds it was getting from the courts.
Those benches, which heard family matters and matrimonial disputes, chose to stop livestreaming of the proceedings of private matters when they were being heard. After completion of private matters, the benches resumed livestreaming. The HC was the first to livestream court proceedings in India. Chief Justice Vikram Nath decided to livestream the proceedings in his court and it has been going on since October 26, 2020.