Supreme Court YouTube channel disabled after hacking incident, cryptocurrency videos streamed

The Supreme Court's official YouTube channel was purportedly hacked on Friday morning. The channel began streaming videos promoting cryptocurrency XRP developed by a US-based company called Ripple Labs, according to media reports.

The channel, which used to live-stream the court proceedings of cases listed before constitution benches and matters involving public interest, has been disabled. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court's Registry has taken cognizance of the breach and is taking measures to recover the channel.

In addition to streaming a number of videos on cryptocurrency, the channel displayed a live blank video titled 'Brad Garlinghouse: Ripple Responds To The SEC's $2 Billion Fine! XRP PRICE PREDICTION'. This particular video surfaced during the time the channel was broadcasting the suo motu case related to the alleged rape and murder of Kolkata's trainee doctor at RG Kar Hospital.

The hacking incident happened on the day the apex court was scheduled to hear a number of important cases, including a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking a fixed time limit for the Centre to notify the appointment of judges recommended by the Supreme Court Collegium. Besides this, the Supreme Court was slated to hear a plea from the Muslim side contesting an Allahabad High Court order. The ruling rejected their challenge on the maintainability of cases filed by Hindu parties related to the Krishna Janmabhoomi-Shahi Idgah dispute.

The website “appears to have been compromised", Indian Express quoted a senior SC official as saying. Asserting that he was unsure about what exactly happened, he said, “It was detected Friday morning and the Supreme Court’s IT team had taken it up with the National Informatics Centre (NIC).”

In 2018, then Chief Justice of India (CJI) UU Lalit presided over a full court meeting where a unanimous decision was taken regarding the live-streaming of court proceedings. This event marked a path-breaking verdict as the top court decided to live-stream proceedings of all constitution bench hearings.