The Bombay High Court on Tuesday said the Maharashtra government needed to come up with a way to allow common people to use public transport system in Mumbai as people are losing jobs, while hearing a plea by lawyers seeking permission to board suburban trains.
The HC directed the government to file its reply within a week on a plea filed by the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa demanding that all lawyers from Maharashtra be allowed to board local trains for court hearings in Mumbai. The bar council claims to represent over 1,75,000 lawyers from the two States.
A Bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G.S. Kulkarni also sought a reply from the State government on another plea of lawyers demanding that consumer courts across the State be directed to begin proceedings either online or through physical hearings.
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The Bench said the State needed to come up with a way to allow general public to begin using public transport system in Mumbai.
“Allowing only lawyers can seem like bias on our part. For why not allow the other sectors? We cannot only think of lawyers. People who are starving, losing their jobs. General manager in office is doing a dumper driver’s job. Someone is selling vegetables (because of the pandemic). Many people would be getting back to their jobs. You (State) have to devise a formula,” the Bench said.
The plea on consumer courts has been filed by an association of consumer court lawyers from across Maharashtra. The petitioner stated that consumer courts had halted all hearings since the nationwide lockdown was imposed in March.
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Consumer courts across the State do not have any provisions for conducting online hearings, it said, while urging the HC to issue necessary orders.