Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud speaks about how live streaming changes perceptions about the Supreme Court.
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00:00Being a people's court is not to say that we fulfil the role of the opposition in Parliament.
00:06I think live streaming of our court proceedings has been a game changer.
00:10Despite the flip sides, and all of you would have seen some of the flip sides in the last few days,
00:16there are lawyers who speak to the gallery, judges who may not exactly be alive to the fact that what
00:23you are speaking in court is now not within the confines of this particular courtroom of
00:2825 or 30 or 50 lawyers, but it goes to 20 million people almost at the flick of a button.
00:34So we have to, in that sense, train our own consciences and our own etiquette into understanding
00:40how we address the bar and how the bar should be addressing the court. So we do have some
00:45grandstanding by lawyers, but by and large, I always feel and that's been my mantra that we
00:51must always live on a sense of hope, not on a live and never live on a sense of cynicism.
00:57You will always have people who will try to misuse the system, but I mean, institutions cannot
01:02be founded on the assumption that somebody will misuse the system, but on the good faith that
01:07everybody will be in it together for the betterment of the community. And I do believe that live
01:12streaming is something which has taken the work of the Supreme Court of India to the homes
01:17and the hearts of people. It's enabled society to have a wider critique on the functioning of
01:25our court. Too very often, a perception gains ground that the Supreme Court does cases only
01:32involving the rich and the resourced clients. And it's very easy to make that allegation against
01:38the Supreme Court because who knows who has the ability to come and cross-check what you are
01:42doing. Citizens are outside the system. But live streaming has changed all that because citizens
01:49now know that the smallest problems of citizens, whether it's a small bail application of someone
01:55who is seriously suffering from an ailment and is in custody for two years under the PMLA or under
02:02the NDPS, or somebody's pension, somebody's service retired dues, that all these ordinary
02:09problems of simple human beings get the most serious attention of the Supreme Court.
02:15The role of the Supreme Court is not just as a final arbiter of constitutional disputes and
02:20doctrine, but also as a socially transformative instrument. Because when we stand firm on some
02:27issues, that provides a guidance to the district courts, to the high courts, that if the Supreme
02:33Court has given us this cue, surely we have to now follow in that path. Ours is a court which
02:38is a people's court. And I think the role of the Supreme Court as a people's court must, of course,
02:45be preserved for the future. Now, being a people's court is not to say that we fulfil the role of the
02:53opposition in Parliament. I think there is, particularly in today's times, there is this
02:58great divide between everybody who thinks that the Supreme Court is a wonderful institution when you
03:06decide in their favour. It is an institution which must be denigrated when you decide against them.
03:12I think that's a dangerous proposition. Because you cannot look at the role of the Supreme Court,
03:17the work of the Supreme Court from the perspective of the outcomes. Outcomes of individual cases may
03:23be in your favour. Outcomes of individual cases may be against you. And judges are entitled to
03:30decide with a sense of independence on a case-by-case basis, which side of the balance
03:36the dice must be cast. Now, you are entitled to criticise courts for the ultimate outcome,
03:43for inconsistency of legal doctrine, or an error apparent, or whatever. And I'm sure judges have
03:48no difficulty about it. But the problem lies when the very same people who see that the court is,
03:55say, going towards a particular direction, are all willing to criticise it merely because an
04:01outcome has gone against you. I think we as a legal profession must have a sense of robust
04:07common sense to understand that judges are entitled and must decide on a case-by-case basis,
04:15depending on how they assess legal doctrine has to be applied to the facts in that particular
04:20situation. So long as we accept that, I think the future of the institution is safeguarded.