SC in lockdown mode; urgent hearing to take place through video conferencing

The Supreme Court on Monday (March 23) has decided to conduct urgent hearings through video conferencing and postpone all other hearings till the COVID-19 threat dies down.

A bench headed by Chief Justice S.A. Bobde said all judges will function from their residences and lawyers are being given access to join hearings through a video-conferencing application. The bench, also comprising justices L.N. Rao and Surya Kant, said, “Entry into the Supreme Court premises is being banned for all except essential staff and security personnel.”

Lawyers worried

Decisions to this effect were taken after seniors advocates including Abhishek Manu
Singhvi and Dushyant Dave expressed concern over the congregation of people at Supreme Court resulting in further spread of coronavirus infections. They urged the Chief Justice to declare two weeks of vacation for the apex court. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta suggested that hearings can be restricted to just one bench per day.

In any case, only the Chief Justice bench was sitting on Monday because of the steps taken to check the epidemic and entry of visitors also restricted since last week.

No summer vacation

Chief Justice Bobde decided that no physical hearing will take place from Tuesday onwards. Only urgent cases will be taken up, just like vacations, and that too only through video conferencing.

The apex court has licenced a video app and lawyers can be given access to that so that they can argue from home, it was explained. Judges will also hear cases through video conferencing from their homes. This will ensure that there is no congregation in the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice observed. To make up for the disruption and the resulting pile-up in cases, the Supreme Court is likely to cancel its summer vacation this year.

Chambers to be vacated

Lawyers have been asked to vacate their chambers in the Supreme Court premises by Tuesday evening so that the SC premises will come under complete lockdown. In the past couple of weeks, SC has been taken steps like making declarations mandatory for visitors and lawyers to ensure that they are not carriers of COVID-19 and temperature checks were also being done. With the situation deteriorating now, SC has moved towards complete lockdown. Lawyers have already been advised that petitions can be filed digitally and there was no need to visit the apex court’s registry.

Overcrowded courtrooms

Lawyers have been complaining for quite some time that SC is overcrowded and sometimes even walking through the corridors is difficult. Supreme Court has been taking steps to control visitors, but that has not been adequate on account of the increasing workload.

Lawyers have also been demanding live telecast of court proceedings to avoid an overcrowding inside the courtrooms. With COVID-19 crisis demanding stringent action, the Chief Justice who is also the administrative head of the court has imposed a complete clampdown for the time being and use of videoconferencing for conducting hearings could set the precedent for future occasions also.