The Supreme Court on Thursday decided to revert to complete virtual mode of hearing owing to the “sudden upsurge of COVID cases”.
A circular issued by the court informed that the court would function virtually from January 7. Judges would hear cases from their residential offices.
It said only extremely urgent mentioned cases, fresh cases, bail pleas, petitions filed against detention, and those seeking stay of an order and cases in which dates are fixed would be heard from January 10.
Earlier in the day, Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana and the senior judges of the court met to discuss the strategy ahead owing to the rise in COVID infections.
In the second wave last year, several lawyers and court staff had died due to COVID.
The court had only recently revised its standard operating procedure and come out of the virtual mode of hearing. The judges were coming to court and physical hearings had been going on for three days a week since October. However, several senior lawyers had opted to participate in the hearings via video conference.
The court has been holding virtual hearings the whole week since it reopened on January 3 after Christmas holidays. But judges have been coming to the courtrooms.
On Thursday, the CJI orally told lawyers that the court may stop physical hearings for a month or more.
Justice L. Nageswara Rao, the fifth senior most judge, also happened to tell lawyers about the meeting the judges had in the morning. “We are considering hearing only urgent matters in the coming weeks,” Justice Rao said.
The court circular came later in the evening.
