Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana announced in open court on Wednesday that the Supreme Court is ready to revert to fully physical mode of hearing from April 4.
The announcement heralds the return of the Supreme Court to the vibrant pre–pandemic days of bustling court corridors.
Presently, the weekdays are divided among physical, virtual and hybrid hearings in the court.
Cases are heard via video conference exclusively on Mondays and Fridays. The rest of the weekdays have physical hearings.
The past two years had seen the court alternate between fully virtual hearings during the peak months of the pandemic and hybrid hearings whenever the infection subsided.
After the Omicron attack, the court had opened up partially in February, reverting to the current arrangment of three days of physical hearings a week.
The standard operating procedure dividing the working between physical and virtual court hearings was first notified by the court in October 7, 2021 after the second wave of virus attack.
Recently, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul had orally remarked that the technology that made hybrid hearings possible should continue to function considering its convenience for lawyers and the amount of money spent on it.
Justice D.Y. Chandrachud had referred to how the Supreme Court had indeed become a “national court” with lawyers from across the country being able to appear for cases through videoconferencing.
The opinion among lawyers about virtual hearings is split in the middle with many opting for the physical mode while others, including Attorney General K.K. Venugopal, preferring to appear virtually.
Litigants across the country have also benefited from the Supreme Court’s virtual court arrangements as it spared them the effort and expenses of coming to the Capital and engaging lawyers here.
