About casestatus.in

Copyright Act, 1957 — Section 52(1)(q)(iv)

The Indian Copyright Act explicitly provides that the reproduction or publication of a judgment or order of a court, tribunal, or other judicial authority does not constitute an infringement of copyright — unless the court itself prohibits such publication.

Right to Privacy — R. Rajagopal vs State of Tamil Nadu (1994)

The Supreme Court of India held that publication of court records does not violate the right to privacy:

"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."

R. Rajagopal vs State of Tamil Nadu, 1994 SCC (6) 632

Open Courts and the Right to Information

The principle of open courts is embedded in the Indian constitutional framework. Article 145(4) of the Constitution requires the Supreme Court to deliver judgments in open court. The Right to Information Act, 2005 — specifically Section 4(1)(b) — places a proactive obligation on public authorities to publish records suo motu, so that citizens have minimum need to seek information formally. Courts and tribunals are public authorities within the meaning of the RTI Act.

The open-court principle itself has deep jurisprudential roots. In Naresh Shridhar Mirajkar v. State of Maharashtra (1966 AIR 1), the Supreme Court affirmed that proceedings in a court of law are conducted in public as a matter of course: the public character of judicial proceedings is not a procedural nicety but a substantive guarantee of the rule of law.

casestatus.in functions within this framework: it makes information that is already part of the public record more accessible — consistent with both the proactive-disclosure mandate of the RTI Act and the open-court principle that has been a cornerstone of Indian judicial administration.