Mumbai lawyers urge CJ to put physical hearings on hold, root for e-courts

MUMBAI: The Bombay Bar Association (BBA) and several senior lawyers on Sunday requested Bombay high court chief justice Dipankar Datta to rethink a move to bring back physical hearings in place of the video-conferences that have become the norm since the lockdown began.
They have urged the chief justice (CJ) to continue with virtual courts till at least December 31, after which, they said, it may be reassessed.The video conferencing mode has been “already successfully used for many months,” said the BBA.
The group wrote a letter to the CJ early Sunday morning to reconsider Friday’s order by which almost the entire high court at the principal seat in Mumbai would go physical from December 1, albeit on an ‘experimental basis’ till January
10. Physical hearings were suspended in the last week of March when the numbers of Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra were less than 50.
About 15 lawyers, including senior counsel V A Thorat, Prasad Dhakephalkar, Shirish Gupte and Amit Desai, urgently sought the choice to appear virtually or physically. They cited a “24 per cent” rise in active Covid-19 cases in the past week alone in Mumbai.
The BBA held a meeting around 4 pm to discuss the issue. Its secretary advocate Birendra Saraf said it had received feedback from many lawyers “expressing grave concern on the making of physical appearances mandatory in so many courts given the pandemic.’’ The BBA resolved to seek a modification from the CJ to add three more benches for matters that require to be physically heard like final hearing of writ petitions and appeals, as was suggested on November 25, and to allow for a “hybrid system” if more courts are to be added. It said if the hybrid system is not possible, video-conferences (VCs) may continue till end of 2020.
The association also offered to seek technical help in ensuring that a hybrid system can be seamless, so that more lawyers who are unable to operate virtually can start appearing physically. The BBA also suggested more links in its room and at the library to enable lawyers to access the virtual platform.
The letter said several high courts had resumed physical hearing but reverted to VCs due to a resurgence in Covid cases. It also pointed out that under rules for physical hearings, entry of litigants would be restricted, but in a VC, they could participate better. Continuing with virtual courts would also ensure that many lawyers who returned to their hometowns would not have to come back to the city, it said, thus reducing the influx into Mumbai.
The lawyers cited a Delhi HC order which directed a trial court to permit video conferencing to a lawyer who challenged an order by a trial court for his physical presence in a matter.
The BBA said, “technical difficulties faced in operating hybrid hearings have been successfully overcome in several High Courts like Delhi and Rajasthan.”
The lawyers' letter said, “Other countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, Italy and many other in Europe have also been forced to go into another lockdown after an unregulated opening of public spaces and institutions.”