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IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI

Judgment Reserved on : 6^th July, 2011

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Judgment Pronounced on: 9^thAugust, 2011

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WP(C) No. 12787/2009

Deepak Khosla

..... Petitioner

Through:

Petitioner in person.

Versus

Union of India & Ors.

..... Respondents

Through:

Mr. Jitendra Kumar, Adv. for UOI

Mr.Rajiv Bansal, Adv. for R-2.

CORAM:

HON'BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SANJIV KHANNA

1 Whether reporters of the local papers be allowed to see the

judgment?

Yes

2 To be referred to the Reporter or not?

Yes

3 Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest?

Yes

DIPAK MISRA, CJ

The petitioner has preferred this writ petition under Article 226 of

the Constitution of India to declare that the petitioner is entitled to non-

intrusively

audio-record

judicial

proceedings

that

involve

his

participation before this Court and to so record either by himself or

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through his advocate on record; to issue a writ of prohibition or a writ

of any other nature or description to command the respondent Nos.3

and 4, the Registrar General and the Registrar of this Court, not to

interfere with the act of non-intrusive audio-recording by the petitioner

or his advocate on record in respect of judicial proceedings that involve

the petitioner; and to issue any further order / direction in the interest

of justice, equity and in furtherance of or to secure any other objective

or purpose as this Court may deem fit and proper in the circumstances

of the case.

2. When the matter was listed before the learned Single Judge on

25.2.2011, he had passed the following order:

“This petition has been filed by the petitioner seeking

a declaration that the petitioner was entitled to non-

intrusively audio recording of judicial proceedings in

those cases wherein the petitioner himself was a

party, he should be allowed to do so either by himself

or through an Advocate-on-record. The other prayer

is that a Writ of Prohibition should be issued against

respondents no. 3 and 4 i.e. the Registrar General and

Registrar of this Court not to interfere with the right

of

the

petitioner

to

do

non-intrusively

audio recording.

Audio/Video recording of the court proceedings in

fact amounts to maintaining a record of the court

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proceedings. The record of the court proceedings is

presently kept in print form by typing the orders or in

the form of soft copy (plus hard copy). Typing was

earlier done on manual typewriters, now-a-days it is

done on computers. Filing itself is also done in the

Court by way of soft copy or hard copy; soft copy in

e-courts and hard copy in non e-courts. The petitioner

is seeking permission to record the proceedings

during hearings of the Court in his own cases and one

of the grounds of petitioner seeking this recording is,

so that the petitioner is able to revive his memory as

to what transpired in the Court and to keep a track of

what was argued in the Court. He submits that he can

use these recordings later on to show that a point was

not argued or a point was argued but was not dealt

with.

Any kind of recording which is done in the court of

record of the court proceedings, if is used before

higher

forum

in

any

judicial

review

must

be authenticated recording duly authenticated by the

Court. Presently there is no procedure available in

the Court of authenticating the audio or video

recording of the

court

proceedings.

Permitting

petitioner for recording of proceedings for his private

use has its own dangers. We know that the

technology of audio/video recording is advanced

these days but the technology of fabricating such

recordings is equally advanced. Anybody can either

delete the relevant portion from the recording or by

creating

similar

frequency/pitch

of

voice

in computer audio and video clips can be added in

the reco