SC hints at possibility of restarting physical hearings, asks joint consent of all parties

The Supreme Court on Tuesday, June 2, asked all the advocates and party-in-person to give their joint consent for physically appearing and arguing in the court. Due to the novel coronavirus crisis, SC has been hearing only urgent cases since March 23 via video-conferencing. The public notice issued by the Additional Registrar stated that several parties had requested the possibility of restarting physical hearings while observing social distancing norms. The notice added that this matter would be considered for listing before the apex court only after receiving the consent of all the parties. The consent can be given on the following email address: consent.list@sci.nic.in. This move is being perceived as a step towards resuming normal functioning of the court. 

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The entry of lawyers and litigants in the apex court has been suspended during the nationwide lockdown. While Friday, May 15 was the last working day for the SC, it was announced that the summer vacation has been deferred. Through video-conferencing, 5 benches started taking up pending and new cases including urgent ones from May 18. This arrangement shall continue till June 19. 

24/7 e-filing

The apex court on May 15 conducted an online demo of the new e-filing module. This enables cases to be filed online 24 hours a day and 7 days a week irrespective of the apex court's working hours. On this occasion, Chief Justice of India Sharad Arvind Bobde delivered his Presidential remarks and Justice DY Chandrachud spoke about the background and purpose of the live demo. This webinar was streamed live on YouTube.

Paperless hearings

On Monday, the SC created a first as all three judges of a bench used laptops to go through cases instead of physical files. Justices DY Chandrachud, Justice Hemant Gupta and Justice Ajay Rastogi conducted the paperless hearings via video conferencing. The case files were delivered to judges in compressed zip files, which were then converted to PDF files. 

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(Image credits: PTI)