New Delhi, Nov 3 (IANS) The Delhi High Court Tuesday sought the response of the government to a plea seeking audio recording of court proceedings to ensure more transparency in the judiciary’s working.
Justice Sanjeev Khanna asked the government and the high court’s registrar to file their responses within six weeks.

Advocate K.V. Dhananjay last week filed the petition contending how the workload of the high court depends on the manner in which cases are filed and the procedure by which the cases are adjudicated in the court.

“If we really wanted our judiciary to be accountable at all and to demonstrate transparency in how it arrives at its decisions, we need to adopt audio recording of all proceedings,” he submitted.

During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General A.S.Chandiok said the high court has no objections to having audio recordings of the proceedings but sought time to give a detailed reply.

Dhananjay cited the case of Deepak Khosla, a businessman who has nearly 20 different cases pending at the Delhi High Court and stated that there was no provision of law that bars anyone from audio recording the hearing.

“The high court had spent more than Rs.42 crore for the financial year 2007-08. Yet, it did not choose to have an audio-recording equipment for the courts. It costs less than Rs.1 lakh to set up a permanent system for recording. A court that chooses not to record at all is under a constitutional duty to allow a party to non-intrusively audio-record so as to mitigate the suffering brought about by the court’s failure to reform itself,” he argued.