Th e High Court of Karnataka on Monday pulled up an advocate for entering a videoconference hearing by obtaining without authorisation the login identification numb er and password from another advocate.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Ashok S. Kinagi took serious exception when the advocate requested the Bench to urgently hear a petition related to admissions to postgraduate medical and dental courses. As the advocate said that she had sent the petition via email around 9.30 a.m. on Monday and requested the Bench to take up a hearing in the interest of students as the regular Bench was not available, the Chief Justice asked her how she got the link (login ID and password) for joining that videoconference.
When she said that she got it from another advocate, the Bench asked her to disclose the identity of that advocate, and she did so. The link containing the login ID and password to join a videoconferencing hearing is sent only to the advocates whose cases are listed before a particular court, and they were not authorised to share the link with anyone else.
Though the Bench, in the interest of students, asked her to disclose the number of the petition, she said she could not give the number as she had come out of her office for better Internet connectivity. On enquiring with the Registrar (Judicial), the Bench noticed that there was no request sent for an urgent hearing of the petition in another email sent at 11.30 a.m. It then gave 30 minutes for the advocates to send a proper email.
