Kapil Sibal’s ‘No Livestream’ Request, Chief Justice’s ‘Open Court’ Reply

New Delhi: Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal today said his women colleagues were receiving threats for representing the West Bengal government in the Kolkata rape-murder case and urged the Supreme Court not to live-stream proceedings in the sensitive matter. The Chief Justice, however, said live-streaming of hearings is in the public interest and assured Mr Sibal that it would intervene if lawyers received threats.

“I have great concerns at what is happening… when a matter is live-streamed like this which has emotive implications… we are not here for the accused, we appear for the state and as soon as the court is making a comment, our reputation is getting destroyed overnight,” Mr Sibal told the bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra.

“We will not stop the live-streaming, it is in the public interest, it’s an open court,” the Chief Justice responded.

Mr Sibal pressed the matter. “There are threats to women in my chamber and then there are posts about me laughing. When did I laugh? it is being said that acid will be thrown at them and they (will be) raped. People on the ground are saying this.”

The Chief Justice replied, “Is there a threat to any woman? woman or man appearing in the matter. We will take care of that.”

The court noted that photographs of the 31-year-old doctor, who was raped and murdered in Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9, continue to be circulated on social media. The law does not allow this, it said. The bench passed an order to address this and directed Wikipedia to remove information about the victim’s identity.