New Delhi: The Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) on Sunday decided to hold a meeting of the presidents of all bar associations in the national capital to work out a course of action for completely reverting to the physical mode of hearing by courts and tribunals.
BCD Chairman Ramesh Gupta said the meeting on February 6 was being held as the Delhi High Court has not acceded to its categorical request to open all courts and tribunals completely in the physical mode by the first week of February.
In a media statement, Gupta claimed that it has not been done due to the "pressure of some affluent advocates who have consolidated their work while sitting abroad or in their farmhouses or hill stations and are against the physical working" of courts.
The lawyers' body chairman further alleged that the affluent lawyers were insisting on a hybrid system, where both physical and virtual modes of hearings take place together, "to manipulate more and more work at the cost of others".
The BCD chairman''s statement comes two days after senior advocate and former Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Vikas Singh wrote afresh to the Chief Justice of India, S A Bobde, seeking to restart of physical hearing at the earliest, saying it was almost a near-normal situation in the country and there was no justification for the Supreme Court to still function in the virtual mode.
In a letter written to the CJI, Singh said if an immediate response was not received in this regard, the lawyers shall be compelled to come to the apex court lawns for a peaceful protest.