The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to include in its proposed policy a provision for action against breaches of the Court's directions restraining the unauthorised uploading of audio-video clips of court proceedings, LiveLaw reported. A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana was hearing a batch of petitions concerning the live streaming and recording and publishing of court proceedings.

Source: LiveLaw

The Court directed MeitY to ensure compliance with the interim directions contained in paragraph 9 of its order dated July 1, as explained in the subsequent order dated October 9, 2026, and ordered: "Suggestions given by the High Courts and interim orders are under consideration of the Ministry of MeitY where formulation of policy is under consideration. MeitY is directed to ensure the compliance of interim directions... Necessary measures for taking action against those who fail to comply with the directions will also be incorporated in the policy regime."

Source: Verdictum

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the Court that the suggestions received from High Courts and other stakeholders had been sent to MeitY and sought listing of the matter after the Diwali break, LiveLaw reported. He also flagged breaches of the Court's earlier directions and asked the Court to consider directing the take-down of content in case of a breach. Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi and Advocate Prashant Bhushan also appeared in the matter, according to Verdictum.

Watermarks, permissions and the YouTuber question

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for an intervenor, submitted that the problem could be addressed if an authenticated repository of court proceedings was maintained on an official website of the Court, with watermarking and cryptographic signing, and people could extract clips only from there. Justice Bagchi responded that steps on these lines were being taken on the administrative side and that steps to prevent extraction of clips from the YouTube channels of High Courts were under way, while emphasising that implementation remained difficult, LiveLaw reported.

When Bhushan argued that the term "commercial exploitation" was vague and gave the example of a YouTuber who wants to report on a case using a clip from the official website, Justice Bagchi said the YouTuber would have to take permission from the Secretary General of the Court, and that there has to be Court supervision over both the extraction of a clip and the purpose of the extraction. "We will examine the problem when we cross it," the judge remarked. The Solicitor General added that YouTubers make money out of the content they publish and are not doing it for any public purpose.

What was already in force

In its July 24 order, the Court had directed that there shall be no extraction, dissemination, monetisation, posting, re-posting, uploading, transmitting, modification, storing or hosting of the audio-video recordings of judicial proceedings on social media or any other digital platform without the prior permission of the Secretary General of the Supreme Court or the Registrar Generals of the jurisdictional High Courts. The Court has clarified that the order will not bar recognised news outlets from reporting court proceedings without sharing the clips, LiveLaw reported.

What happens next: MeitY is formulating the policy regime on the unauthorised extraction and circulation of court proceeding recordings, and the Solicitor General has sought listing of the matter after the Diwali break. Friday's direction means the draft policy must now also spell out what action will follow when the Court's interim directions are violated.