Delhi HC seeks Kejriwal's stand on PIL over court videos, directs removal

New Delhi, April 23: The Delhi High Court on Thursday sought responses from AAP leaders Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh, Congress leader Digvijay Singh and others on a PIL seeking contempt action over alleged uploading and sharing of clips of court proceedings.

A bench of Justices V Kameswar Rao and Manmeet P S Arora issued notice on the petition filed by advocate Vaibhav Singh and directed social media platforms to take down videos of the April 13 hearing, noting that unauthorised recording and dissemination of court proceedings are prohibited under the high court rules.

Counsel for Meta Platforms and Google submitted that the links flagged in the petition had been removed.

Noting that some clips were still available on X, the court directed that the platform remove such content upon receipt of notice.

“We issue notice to respondent no. 4 and other respondents. The affidavit shall be filed in four weeks,” the bench said, listing the matter for hearing on July 6.

The court also issued notice to the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and sought its response.

Other respondents include AAP leaders Sanjeev Jha, Mukesh Ahlawat and Jarnail Singh, and journalist Ravish Kumar.

During the hearing, the bench observed that unauthorised recording, uploading and publication of court proceedings were barred and raised concerns over their circulation. “We are concerned with the larger interest of the institution. Otherwise, if we don't control this, it would go (on),” the court said.

Counsel for Meta stated that, as an intermediary, it does not proactively monitor content but acts upon receiving information in accordance with law. “The moment we get to know, we take it down. The moment we got the letter (in this case from the high court administration), we took it down,” the counsel said, adding that no case for contempt action against the platform was made out.

The court asked the platforms to indicate whether the origin of the uploaded videos could be identified. Meta’s counsel said subscriber details could be provided as the uploader accounts had been identified.

The petitioner submitted that unauthorised recording and circulation of court proceedings undermined judicial independence and was illegal, alleging that the videos were edited to “serve the political agenda” of the respondents.

The plea alleged that Kejriwal and others “intentionally and deliberately recorded and circulated” the April 13 proceedings before Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma to malign the court’s image. It sought constitution of a special investigation team and initiation of contempt proceedings, along with removal of the content.

The petitioner had earlier filed a complaint before the high court registrar general on April 15.

On April 20, Justice Sharma declined to recuse herself from hearing the liquor policy case, observing that a litigant cannot seek recusal without material and that judges cannot step aside on unfounded apprehensions of bias.