Chief Justice of Madras High Court Amreshwar Pratap Sahi on Wednesday impressed upon the need to ensure that a distance of at least one metre is maintained between two persons, as per medical advice, inside court halls, to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Pointing at the lawyers who had gathered inside court hall number 1, the Chief Justice said: “We are in violation of medical norms.” He requested the advocates not to insist upon hearing of regular cases and said only urgent cases, requiring immediate intervention of the court, would be taken up for hearing. “We have to be a bit careful because every day, newspapers are recording an increase in COVID-19 cases and not a decrease,” he told the lawyers and expressed concern over the President of the United States, Donald Trump, having made a statement that the COVID-19 crisis could stretch till August. He advised lawyers against undertaking travel.
When a mention was made about hearing of cases filed by 21 DMK legislators who were subjected to privilege proceedings for displaying the banned gutkha packets in the Assembly in 2017, the Bench, comprising the Chief Justice and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy, directed the Registry to list it on April 27, tentatively.
When advocate R. Neelakandan stated that a senior counsel from Delhi had to come down to argue the cases, Chief Justice Sahi said: “Ask them to stay in Delhi, no need to travel.” He also recalled how badly the seats in an aircraft were maintained when he had to fly to Madurai on Monday to convene a meeting regarding measures to be taken against the spread of COVID-19.
“When I tapped the seat beside me, it was full of dust and water. I told aircraft personnel that there was a threat of COVID-19 and that they were maintaining the seats like this,” said the Chief Justice, and sought for cooperation from lawyers to deal with the situation. He, however, made it clear that the court would not avoid hearing cases of extreme importance.
