SC to hear cases via video conferencing

Chief Justice of India has directed during the course of the ensuing week, a bench of two judges will be available to transact judicial work SC STATEMENT

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court went into a complete shutdown mode on Monday because of the coronavirus disease outbreak and only “extremely urgent” cases will be taken up for hearing starting on Tuesday. The decision was taken by Chief Justice of India (CJI) SA Bobde after consultations with other Supreme Court judges and lawyers’ representatives.

The premises of the top court will be fully closed and cases will be heard only through video conferencing, Skype or other similar means without the personal presence of lawyers, who can join the video conferencing from their offices. The chambers of lawyers on the Supreme Court campus will, however, remain open until 5 pm on Tuesday, to enable advocates to take out their personal belongings and documents.

“Hon’ble the Chief Justice of India has, after consulting his colleagues, directed that during the course of the ensuing week, a Bench of two Hon’ble Judges, as may be necessary to hear extremely urgent cases, will be available to transact judicial work,” a notification issued by the SC late on Sunday said.

In order to get a case listed before the court, an advocate should indicate the extreme urgency of the matter in writing by appending a one-page justification explaining the emergency. The case will then be listed at the discretion of the presiding judge who is slated to hear the case.

Any urgent matter in which interim orders are expiring and need to be extended can be brought to the notice of court registry for urgent listing.

All bail matters will be heard by a single judge during this period. The proximity cards issued to lawyers and clerks for entry into the premises of the top court will be deactivated for the time being and any lawyer who wishes to enter the court because of any emergency will require clearance from the Supreme Court Bar Association.

The facility for e-filing of cases in the top court will also be made operational shortly.

The Supreme Court has been in a partial shutdown since March 16 after a notification was issued by the top court on March 13 by which it was decided that only urgent cases will be listed for hearing.

Clarity was missing on what constituted urgent matters and several cases came to be listed before the court in the week of March 16. Besides cases of public importance like the Madhya Pradesh assembly crisis, a slew of transfer petitions and corporate matters were also listed, leading to sizeable crowds in the court rooms of the apex court.

Subsequently, the Supreme Court Bar Association and Supreme Court Advocate-onrecord Association (SCAORA), two Bar bodies which represent the apex court lawyers, had urged the CJI to resort to a complete shutdown of the top court, citing the Coronavirus threat.