02 March, 2011

Recording proceedings favoured by judge

A Delhi high court judge has strongly backed “authenticated audio-video recording” of court proceedings.
A day before his retirement, Justice S N Dhingra, while deciding a petition seeking permission to record court proceedings on Monday, observed that this will “help in smooth functioning of district courts” and also discipline not only judges who don’t come to court but also advocates and litigants who try to obtain orders by show of force or threats to the court”.
At present, any attempt to record court proceedings is tantamount to contempt of court and attracts punishment. HC was hearing a plea by one Deepak Khosla through his lawyer K V Dhananjai seeking permission to record proceedings in cases where he is a party. Justice Dhingra referred the matter to a larger HC bench, saying the matter concerned not just one court but all Delhi courts and therefore ought to be considered by a larger bench.
The judge said recording would help in cases in appeal stage where one party claims certain incident never happened in trial court stage. He warned any audio-video recording ought to be properly “authenticated” because “technology of fabricating recordings is advanced” and pointed to the inherent danger the recording, if done by a dishonest litigant/lawyer, poses to the courts. “Therefore any recording sought to be used for judicial review before any forum, etc, can’t be permitted by the court unless there is a set procedure for authentication for the recording and a copy of the recording is preserved in court for comparison,” the judge said.

Source:- The Times of India 2nd March 2011 Page 3 Delhi

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