For proper dispensation of justice, proceedings in open court are sine qua non vis-à-vis proceedings in camera. It is deeply rooted in the principles of openness, transparency, and fair play.

The history of common law is replete with open trials. It was a norm except for star chambers where proceedings were kept in secret.

Such secret and in-camera proceedings have never been appreciated and have always been deprecated by the civilised world on the touchstone of fair play and transparency.

The Star Chamber in Great Britain, named due to its starred ceiling, which was at one point regarded as an efficient institution for the dispensation of justice and harbinger of justice, has a chequered history.

Due to the lack of fairness and transparency and augmented with opaqueness in the manner in which the Star Chamber functioned, it is regarded as an instrument of oppression and a tool for persecution.

Historically speaking, the in-camera proceedings undertaken by the Star Chamber have come to be observed and known as one of the reasons for its degeneration from being an instrument of justice to becoming a tool for persecution and torture.

The lessons learnt from the proceedings of the Star Chamber by common law jurisdictions led to the evolution and applicability of the principle of Open Court. In this context , dicta from Ambard vs. Attorney General for Trinidad and Tobago([1936], A.C. 322) is often cited where it was held that, “justice is not a cloistered virtue…She must be allowed to suffer the scrutiny and respectful…comments of ordinary men.” In a similar tone and tenor, it was opined by the US Supreme Court, Justice Louis Brandeis, in “What Publicity Can Do”(Harper’s Weekly, 1913) that, “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants…”.

The erudite English philosopher Jeremy Bentham, who in Anarchical Fallacies,1791, wrote a few centuries back ,“[i]n the darkness of secrecy, sinister interest and evil in every shape have full swing…where there is no publicity, there is no justice.

Publicity is the very soul of justice. It is the keenest spur to exertion, and the surest of all guards against improbity. It keeps the judge himself while trying under trial“. His saying is still........

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