"What is the difficulty for the State to livestream entire assembly proceedings", MHC wonders

CHENNAI: The Chief Justice of the Madras High Court (MHC) wondered if the Parliament proceedings are being streamed live, what is the difficulty for the State to do the same, and directed the State to submit how it will live stream the assembly proceedings.

The first division bench comprising Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy heard a batch of cases preferred by DMDK founder Vijaykanth, former minister of AIADMK SP Velumani, and D Jagadheeswaran from Chennai, to live telecast or webcast the assembly proceedings.

The Advocate General (AG) PS Raman submitted that the State is already live streaming the complete question hour, discussion on call attention motion, budget speeches, and replies of ministers.

In order to expunge the unparliamentary comments of the members and personal attacks, the State couldn't livestream the complete assembly proceedings.

After the submission, the Chief Justice intervened and wondered if Parliament can live stream the entire proceedings of the house, why not the State to do the same.

Further, the bench also suggested to telecast the proceedings with 2-minute delay by expunging the unparliamentary comments.

The AG contended that SP Velumani, one of the petitioners, had not implemented the live streaming of the assembly proceedings when their party was in power.

Objecting to the submission the senior counsel Vijay Narayan appeared for SP Velumani, submitted that AIADMK signed with National E-Vidhan Application (NEVA) to live telecast the assembly proceedings.

After the submission, the bench directed the State to respond regarding the live streaming of assembly proceedings and posted the matter to March 11, for further hearing.