The High Court of Chhattisgarh on Wednesday started live-streaming its proceedings on YouTube.

The proceedings in court rooms 1, 3 and 5 were today live-streamed by the High Court.

The Chhattisgarh High Court has now joined a growing list of High Courts, which stream their proceedings live.

The High Court of Gujarat had pioneered live-streaming of court proceedings on its YouTube channel in October 2020.

It was followed by the High Courts of Kerala, Karnataka, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Patna, Jharkhand and Calcutta, which took the decision in the interest of transparency and greater access to court hearings.

The Supreme Court also started live-streaming its proceedings on YouTube, however, it only livestreams the Constitution Bench hearings.

The Kerala High Court on Saturday held a special sitting to hear the petitions challenging the caste requirement mandated by the Travancore Devaswom Board for appointment to the post of Melsanthi (High Priest) at the Sabarimala Temple.

The hearing was conducted by the Division Bench of Justice Anil K. Narendran and Justice P.G. Ajithkumar, which became historic, as the proceedings were live-streamed on YouTube, a first in the Kerala High Court.

It is likely that Respondents – the Travancore Devaswom Board and the government of Kerala, will conclude their arguments on the next date of hearing, which is December 17.

On May 27 last year, the Travancore Devaswom Board had issued a notification, inviting applications for the post of Santhikkaran at Sabarimala Dharmasastha Temple and Malikappuram Temple, only from the members of Malayala Brahmin community.

Filed in July last year through Advocate B.G. Harindranath, one of the petitions challenged this notification on the ground that it contradicted the Supreme Court judgements on the point and also violated Articles 14, 15, 16, 17 and 21 of the Constitution of India.

The Counsel today argued on the basis of recruitment rules of the Travancore Devaswom Board.

Appearing for some other petitioners, Dr. Mohan Gopal argued on how the notification did not fall within the ambit of the Constitution.

Dr. Gopal argued that limiting the recruitment of Melsanthi to Malayala Brahmins only was more a violation of the constitutional bar against practicing untouchability, than of the Right to equality.

Calling the Sabarimala temple a non-denominational temple, which was open to all Hindus, the lawyer said the right to be a priest without a caste barrier was intrinsically linked to the right to enter and worship the temple without any discrimination on the basis of caste.

His cited the Supreme Court ruling in N Adithayan vs The Travancore Devaswom Board & Ors, which was binding on the High Court. He said in this case, the Apex Court had upheld the right of a non-Malayala Brahmin to be appointed as priest of a Shiva temple that was under the administration of the Travancore Devaswom Board. The same board administers the Sabarimala temple as well.

Justice Vikram Nath was born on September 24, 1962 at Kaushambi district in Uttar Pradesh. He completed his graduation as a Bachelor of Science in 1983 and completed his LL.B. in 1986. Following the footsteps of his ancestors, Justice Nath enrolled as an Advocate on March 30, 1987, becoming a fourth generation advocate. He practiced at the Allahabad High Court for over 17 years in Civil, Revenue, Constitutional, Company and Service matters and has specialised in Company, Revenue and Civil Matters.

On September 24, 2004, he was appointed as an Additional Judge of the Allahabad High Court and on February 27, 2006, Justice Nath was appointed as a permanent Judge of the Allahabad High Court. After serving the judiciary for 15 years, he was elevated as the Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court on September 10, 2019.

The Supreme Court had initially recommended Justice Vikram Nath to be appointed as the Chief Justice of Andhra Pradesh High Court, but on the request of the Central Government, the apex court changed its recommendation, to elevate him as the Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court.

The Supreme Court Collegium, headed by Chief Justice of India Justice N.V. Ramana, recommended the name of Justice Vikram Nath, Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court, to be elevated as a Judge of the Supreme Court.

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Justice Nath is the first Chief Justice of a High Court in India to live-stream its proceedings on Youtube during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Justice Vikram Nath in “In Re: Uncontrolled Upsurge and Serious Management in Covid Control” took up suo motu proceedings during the second wave of pandemic in the State of Gujarat, where he expressed his concern with certain policies of the state government and pressed the State Government over scarcity of beds and Remdesivir injections, apart from queuing up of ambulances outside the Civil Hospital, Ahmedabad. As a result of the tough stand of Gujarat High Court led by Chief Justice Vikram Nath, the State Government undertook a variety of measures to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.

Justice Vikram Nath, as the Chief Justice of Gujarat High Court, paid an impromptu visit at the newly-relocated Central Filing Centre (CFC) in the Gujarat High Court premises, to get a first-hand experience of the procedure of filing nowadays.

Recently in Jamiat Ulama-E-Hind Gujarat v. State Of Gujarat, the division bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Biren Vaishnav stayed certain key provisions of  The Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act 2021, observing “Prima facie, interfaith marriages between two consenting adults by operation of the provisions of Section 3 of the 2003 Act, interferes with the intricacies of marriage, including the Right to Choice of an individual, thereby infringing Article 21 of the Constitution of India.”

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The bench observed that certain provisions of The Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Act 2021, also known as the Love-Jihad law, was putting interfaith marriages of consenting adults in great jeopardy.

In Heritage Trust v. Union of India, a Public Interest Litigation pertaining to preservation of Pratap Vilas Palace, the residence of Pratapsinhrao Gaekwad, the last Maharaja of Baroda, Justice Vikram Nath recalled a judgment by the Allahabad High Court,  relating to Alfred Park, Allahabad that has resulted in saving the lungs of Allahabad city, drawing parallels with Vadodara’s green cover around the Pratap Vilas Palace. The Division Bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Ashutosh J. Shastri observed “The decades-old trees serve as lungs of the city were replacing with new saplings which would not serve the same purpose as mature trees do.” In this context, his Lordship recalled a similar imbroglio in his parent Allahabad High Court more than 35 years ago in Arun Kumar v. Mahanagar Palika, Allahabad and Ors. The High Court went on to dismiss the PIL filed against construction of a four story building near Pratap Vilas Palace, currently owned by the Indian Railways.