Mumbai: A Public Interest Litigation(PIL) has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking to set aside the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) of Bombay High Court which has made the principal seat of the HC functional only for three hours 12 pm to 3 pm through video conferencing till 28 January. The petitioner contends that it's not justified considering the high amount of pendency of cases and the top court itself working full time virtually.
The plea has been filed by Advocate Ghanshyam Upadhyay who practices at the Bombay HC and the Supreme Court states that during the first and second wave of COVID 19 when the situation was much more alarming than of now, the HC judges would used to sit daily till late evening sometimes up to 8 pm. So now there is no reason for them to sit for just three hours.
He says that curtailment of hours without any benefit, as the court can operate virtually, would cause hardships and sufferings to litigants and advocates not just during the implementation of SOP but also later as the cases would pile on. He has also challenged the SOP issued by the HC for subordinate courts in Mumbai, Pune, Raigad, Alibaug and Thane making them functional from 11 am to 4 pm with the presence of 50% of staff on a rotation basis and directing them to take remand, bail matters of under trial prisoners and urgent matters through physical hearing for four hours. The matter regarding evidence, hearing arguments etc are at the subordinate court's discretion to hear via virtual mode.
Petitioner contends hearing of matters at the HC and subordinate courts have reduced drastically and are almost at standstill due to the new SOPs. Judges at subordinate courts are making every attempt at avoiding hearing due to virus threat to them, said the petitioner. "It is pertinent to mention that to the best of the knowledge of the petitioner there are no requisite infrastructures, which are not very difficult and/ or even expensive, which are required to hear the matters through a virtual platform.
"It is very shameful that subordinate courts of the financial capital of the country and its adjoining cities named here in above, which are considered and believed to be the most advanced and forward cities and all respect among all the cities of the country, lack infrastructures for hearing the matters on a virtual platform, with a very easy and cheap to predict your, whereas, in almost every state of the country, all the courts including Court situated in remote areas were found to function on a virtual platform and that too very effectively and the petitioner as a matter of fact had attended participated such hearing in the subordinate of few states situated in rural and remote areas," read the petition.
He seeks directions to the Bombay HC to ensure that all courts in the state function full time through virtual mode laying down the guidelines to avoid the physical appearance of lawyers.
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