City’s lower courts face uphill task in implementing anti-corona measures

THE SEVEN DISTRICT COURTS OF THE CITY SEE AN AVERAGE FOOTFALL IS BETWEEN 50,000 AND 60,000 PEOPLE DAILY

NEW DELHI: While the Supreme Court and Delhi high court on Friday decided to hear only urgent matters and restrict the entry of litigants into their premises from Monday to prevent the possible spread of coronavirus, the seven district courts, where average daily footfall is between 50,000 and 60,000 people, may find it difficult to implement similar measures.

In an advisory to the city courts on Friday, the Delhi high court issued 17 instructions, including not insisting on the presence of the parties unless unavoidable, regulating entry of litigants and the public to the court complex to avoid crowding, using thermal scanners at check points, and not passing adverse orders in matters where parties are absent.

But since Saturday and Sunday were court holidays, it may take a day or two to make lawyers and litigants aware of the anticoronavirus measures planned by judicial and administrative officers of the district courts, and to enforce the advisories of the high court, several lawyers and judicial officers said.

“The Saket court alone gets a daily footfall of around 15,000, and a majority of them are litigants. Even as steps are being taken to curtail this number and make litigants aware of the advisories, 8,000 to 10,000 people may still turn up on Monday. It will take at least two days to fully implement the restrictions,” said senior advocate Dhir Singh Kasana, who is also the secretary general of the coordination committee of all district courts.

Another senior advocate, Karan Singh, said that the litigants might find themselves in a panic situation if the directions passed by the high court and measures planned by the authorities do not reach them well within the time or end up just in papers.

“All stakeholders need to cooperate in implementing the guidelines of the Delhi high court . Administrative authorities need to advertise these guidelines in newspapers, news channels, radio and courts websites or any other mode of communication so that no inconvenience is caused to the lawyers and litigants,” said Singh, the former secretary of New Delhi Bar Association.

Singh stressed the importance of limiting the entry-exit points of the courts to ensure that proper screening of visitors is done with thermal scanners, and the sanitisation of courtroom, lawyers’ chambers, toilets, and other public spaces within the compounds.

Following the high court’s advisory, a circular was issued by Girish Kathpalia, district and session judge (headquarters), Tis Hazari Court, directing all the staff members of the courts to wear mask to avoid spreading of coronavirus. “…for said purpose, mask may be obtained from the Care Taking Branch (Central) Room No- 305, Tis Hazari Courts, Delhi, if required,” the circular said.

The circular also asked all the judicial, administrative officers and judicial branch in-charges at Tis Hazari court to “direct orderly/peons posted in their respective courts and branches to clean/sanitize the common places/surfaces like door, handles, chair handles, front table of dias, witness boxes, etc, which are being regularly touched by various persons including advocates, litigants, staff, etc, at regular intervals i.e after every hour.”

On Saturday morning, the New Delhi Bar Association held a meeting with judicial, security and lock-up officials of the Patiala House Court and took certain steps to avoid spreading of the coronavirus in the court complex.

Delhi high court’s registrar general Manoj Jain said that the process of procuring thermal scanners was under way and all the possible preventive and remedial measures mentioned in the advisory are being taken.

But the issue of containing access to the facility and implementing the measures remains.