KUALA LUMPUR (April 22): The High Court has barred any uploading of court recordings on social media, following a clip of Datuk Seri Najib Razak's SRC International Sdn Bhd trial that was uploaded by an ex-aide of the former premier last week.

High Court judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, however, stopped short of ruling that Isham Jalil, who on April 19 and 20 uploaded two clips of the proceedings, was in contempt of court over the incident.

"Any form of recording is not permitted, not only live streaming, and this includes the CRT (court recording transcription). The CRT is supplied on the express purpose of transcribing and not to upload.

"I hope both the defence and prosecution who are officers of the court to abide by this. I would like to remind everyone to refrain from making comments that may prejudice to the trial that may constitute as contempt of court," said Justice Nazlan.

The matter was raised in court today by prosecution lawyer Datuk V Sithambaram, who pointed out that while CRT can be issued to lawyers for reference, they have undertaken not to distribute the copy.

"They (lawyers) have undertaken not to distribute. We want the court order so that no third parties can upload the court proceedings," said Sithambaram.

Lead defence counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, however, responded that everyone have as much right to view the proceedings as those "who are watching this live proceeding next door" — referring to the media who are following the trial in a separate video link room.

"I am surprised. We were the one who started this trial with a [media] gag order and they objected. If this had been given, the problem would not occur," Shafee added.

The trial, which is on its sixth day today, has unveiled four new witnesses who have all received cheques from Najib's AmBank Islamic account in 2015.

Najib is currently facing seven charges for the alleged siphoning of RM42 million from 1MDB former subsidiary SRC into his personal bank accounts. The trial will resume at 2pm.