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Six years after a petition was filed, Gujarat remains the only state in India whose legislative assembly does not livestream its proceedings. And the courts are yet to break the deadlock.

A scheduled hearing on a public interest litigation seeking mandatory live telecast of assembly proceedings could not be taken up by the Gujarat high court last Friday (March 27). The PIL has been pending since 2020.

Gujarat reportedly stands alone among all 30 state assemblies in the country in refusing to broadcast its proceedings live. Videography and photography inside the House are also barred without prior authorisation.

The timing is critical here. The assembly recently wrapped up a month-long Budget Session on March 25, during which lawmakers passed significant legislation, including the adoption of a Uniform Civil Code and an amendment to the Disturbed Areas Act. Both the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress had demanded live coverage during the session. Neither demand was met, according to reports.

The opposition Congress had made a similar demand the previous year as well.

There was a flicker of hope in September 2023. Gujarat adopted the National eVidhan Application (NeVA). It’s a secure digital platform for managing legislative processes. However, things continue to be in limbo.

Speaker Shankar Chaudhary said the assembly was “thinking about” going live. He added, however, that he could not say exactly when that might happen. He noted the assembly’s YouTube channel was ready and a website had been developed through NeVA, but said there were “some limitations.”

The PIL, filed by social activists Neeta Hardikar and Siddharth Jitendra Pathak, asks the court to direct mandatory live telecast of proceedings.

It also seeks that legislation texts, transcripts, and question-answer records be made available on the Assembly website (in both Gujarati and English) in line with Section 4(1)(b) of the RTI Act and constitutional obligations under Articles 19(a) and 21.

The Assembly Secretariat has pushed back firmly. In affidavits filed in 2021, Deputy Secretary Reeta Mehta submitted on behalf of the Secretariat that the House enjoys privileges similar to the UK’s House of Commons, which include the power to control publication of its own proceedings.

She contended that fundamental rights are not absolute and are subject to reasonable restrictions, and that no legal duty exists to comply with the obligations sought in the petition.

The affidavit traced the history of Article 194 of the Constitution, which governs the powers and privileges of state legislatures, to the privileges of the House of Commons at the time India’s Constitution came into force.

It noted that a 1976 amendment had sought to curtail judicial interference in determining legislative privileges, but this was reversed by a 1978 amendment that restored the position as it stood before 1976.

The Secretariat also cited Section 8 of the RTI Act (the exemption from disclosure clause) arguing it gives state legislatures discretion over disclosing information that may breach their privilege.

It maintained that “it is settled law” that each House is the sole judge of whether its privilege has been breached, a position, it said, that the Supreme Court has recognised on various occasions.

The petitioners disagreed. In their rejoinder filed on July 31, 2021, they drew a distinction between the right to publish, as claimed by the press, and the right to know, which belongs to citizens.

They clarified that the petition sought compliance specifically under Section 4(1)(b) of the RTI Act, which deals with proactive disclosure obligations, and that this did not infringe the privilege of the House in any manner. They argued that elected representatives act on behalf of citizens and that knowing what happens inside the legislature is rooted in the very idea of representative democracy.

In a separate affidavit filed on September 30, 2021, then Deputy Secretary C.B. Pandya reportedly said that the Assembly had already uploaded all public documents on the NeVA website, with a link from its official homepage, making them available in the public domain.

He added that the NeVA website was not temporary and could not be removed by the central government.

The Secretariat also pointed out that merely because documents appeared on the NeVA website rather than the Assembly’s own website did not diminish their credibility.

The Secretariat said the Assembly is not entirely in the dark. It pointed to a daily half-hour programme called Lokshahi Na Dhabkara (meaning “Heartbeat of Democracy”) broadcast on regional Gujarati channels including DD Girnar at 6:30 pm, as well as on YouTube.

It said the Budget Speech is telecast live, and full debate transcripts are available on the NeVA website.

The petition remains pending. No fresh hearing date has been announced.

This article first appeared on Vibes of India. 

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