Court hearings are open to the public – India has an open court system till the court proceedings are converted into an ‘in-camera trail’. Where there is an open court hearing, litigants are entitled to know the progress in their case. The concept of access to justice provides that though a litigant is not in court, they are able to know what is happening in their case inside the court. Barring few exceptions like hearings in a rape case, the courts are open to the public for all hearing and the Supreme Court in order to facilitate this concept has even started to frame appropriate guidelines for allowing live streaming of the proceedings so that the citizens have the right to information and matters of constitutional and national importance can be live-streamed for awareness
b. Court judgments are public records but not court documents. If a case is heard by a court of India, no one can argue that the opinion should not be published and view able by all, unless the court itself expressly says it cannot be published or a law says it cannot. The decisions of the Supreme Court are the law of the land, and all citizens can read their decisions. Not just the Supreme Court, courts today are publishing their judgments and orders on the Internet. The Copyright Act s 52(1)(q)(iv) states that publication of court judgments does not constitute an infringement of copyright
In R. Rajagopal vs State of T.N on 7 October, 1994 where the Supreme Court defined the scope of the right to privacy, it was stated that publication of court records will not constitute any violation of the right to privacy. It was held: “The rule aforesaid is subject to the exception, that any publication concerning the aforesaid aspects becomes unobjectionable if such publication is based upon public records including court records. This is for the reason that once a matter becomes a matter of public record, the right to privacy no longer subsists and it becomes a legitimate subject for comment by press and media among others. We are, however, of the opinion that in the interests of decency [Article 19(2) an exception must be carved out to this rule, viz., a female who is the victim of a sexual assault, kidnap, abduction or a like offence should not further be subjected to the indignity of her name and the incident being publicized in press/media”