Supreme Court asks MeitY to add penalties for sharing court hearing videos

The Supreme Court on Friday, October 30, 2026 asked the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to include action against violators in the policy it is drafting on the unauthorised sharing of videos of court hearings. A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana said the proposed policy should spell out the consequences for unauthorised use and circulation of courtroom recordings once it comes into force. The court was hearing a petition by Harshita Grover against the extraction, sharing and monetisation of clips from live-streamed court proceedings.

Live-streaming of court hearings was meant to make justice more open, letting citizens, students and journalists watch proceedings without being in the courtroom. But it has also created a new kind of content. Short clips of judges' remarks or lawyers' arguments are cut from the streams and shared on social media, often without context, sometimes with misleading captions, and in some cases on channels that earn money from the views. The petition before the court targets exactly that practice.

The court's direction matters because a ban without consequences is hard to enforce. The July interim order already prohibits unauthorised posting, but the government's own law officer has admitted that breaches continue. By asking MeitY to write penalties into its policy, the court is pushing for rules that platforms and creators can be held to, rather than a general instruction that is widely ignored.

For technology platforms and digital creators, this is a significant development in India's content regulation. MeitY's policy could set out who can share court footage, what permission is needed and how takedowns will work. Reports say permission would have to come from the Supreme Court's Secretary General or the relevant High Court's Registrar General, though it is not yet clear how this will be formalised. The court has kept fair news reporting outside the restriction, which will be an important line to watch in the final text.

Prashant Bhushan's suggestion points to a technical solution: if authenticated recordings sit only on the court's own website, viewers could check any clip against the official source, making doctored or misleading versions easier to spot.

Short-term: MeitY will need to add enforcement provisions to its draft. Social media platforms may face more takedown requests for court clips, and creators who post such clips risk action under the existing order.

Long-term: The final policy could become the main rulebook for how court proceedings are shared online in India, balancing open justice against misuse. It may also influence how other public proceedings that are streamed live are treated.

Who is affected: Social media platforms and content creators; journalists and legal news services, who rely on the fair reporting exception; law students and the public who watch live streams; and judges and lawyers whose words appear in viral clips.

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