HC agrees to hear plea on hearings over video

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday agreed to consider a plea that wanted hearings to be conducted through video-conferencing for lawyers due to the coronavirus outbreak.

A bench of chief justice D N Patel and Justice C Hari Shankar said it would make a test run of video-conferencing and check the feasibility of the plea filed by 82-year-old Jamna Datwani.

Datwani had sought to quash the notifications issued by the Delhi High Court and National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) announcing restrictions in work due to the coronavirus.

In the plea, filed through advocate Deepak Khosla, the petitioner said there was no reason why court hearings cannot continue through video-conferencing. The plea said the VC in the current context would be nothing but an excellent manifestation of the spirit underlying the most effective remedy against this pandemic.

“Video-conferencing shall mean lesser air pollution due to lesser vehicles on the streets and shall lead to lesser parking congestion, lesser fuel consumption, resulting in the lesser import of crude, which then leads to dropping of rupee price against the dollar,” the petition read.

On Monday, the HC had said that till March 20, it would hear only urgent matters. It had said the trial courts would also hear only bail and stay matters.

The court also directed that no undertrial prisoner would be produced before the subordinate courts till March 31 and if the production of any such person is indispensable, video-conferencing will be utilised. HTC