Court Clips on Digital Platforms: SC Directs Statutory Takedown Before Judicial Intervention, Signals Criminal Liability for Doctored Content

On September 16, 2026, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India declined to order the removal of audio-video clips of an advocate’s courtroom appearance circulating on social media and news portals, holding the plea premature.

The Bench instead directed that an aggrieved party must first invoke the statutory takedown remedy under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act) and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, by issuing takedown requisitions to the platforms and news portals concerned, and granted the petitioner liberty to approach the platforms directly. The Bench observed that Section 69A of the IT Act already addresses the issue and that a declaration of law operates as a prohibition on publication and circulation by an intermediary.

Significantly, the Bench drew a distinction between two categories of violation: the commercial exploitation of court recordings, which may amount to contempt of court; and the circulation of clips in which words are added that were never spoken or remarks are falsely attributed to the Bench, which the Court characterised as “criminal activity” warranting a more serious view. This distinction signals that the Court may treat fabricated or doctored clips more severely than mere unauthorised redistribution.

The present direction reinforces the enforcement framework underlying the Bench’s earlier interim order restricting the circulation of court-proceeding clips by confirming that aggrieved parties must first resort to the statutory takedown machinery before seeking judicial intervention. That order, dated July 24, 2026, was passed in the pending public interest litigation, Harshita Grover v. Union of India & Ors. (Writ Petition (Civil) No. 751/2026), which seeks guidelines to regulate the clipping, editing, dissemination and monetisation of audio-visual recordings of judicial proceedings on digital platforms.

The order barred any person from extracting, disseminating, monetising, posting, re-posting, uploading, transmitting, modifying, storing or hosting audio-video recordings of judicial proceedings on social media or any other digital platform without the prior permission of the Secretary General of the Supreme Court or the Registrar General of the jurisdictional High Court.

By a further order dated July 31, 2026, the Bench clarified that recognised news outlets may continue to report on proceedings, “save that audio or video clips of the court proceedings shall not be utilised in the course of such reportage.”

Read together, the three directions establish a layered enforcement framework for the regulation of court-proceeding clips. The July 24 order sets the substantive prohibition; the July 31 order carves out legitimate news reporting from its scope; and the September 16 direction identifies the procedural route through which the prohibition is to be enforced in the first instance, namely, the statutory takedown machinery under the IT Act rather than direct judicial intervention. The practical effect is that the Court has reserved its contempt jurisdiction as a backstop, to be invoked only after an aggrieved party has exhausted the remedies available under the IT Act and the Intermediary Guidelines Rules.

The interim directions remain in force, and the lead matter, Harshita Grover v. Union of India, is listed for further hearing on September 18, 2026.

For aggrieved parties, the immediate practical takeaway is a three-step enforcement sequence: first, issue formal takedown notices or requisitions to the social-media intermediaries and news portals concerned, invoking the Intermediary Guidelines Rules and the Supreme Court’s interim orders of July 24 and July 31, 2026; second, if the platforms do not comply, escalate through the mechanism under Section 69A of the IT Act by approaching the appropriate government authority; and third, only after exhausting these statutory remedies, approach the Court for further relief, including for contempt of the subsisting interim orders.