A committee of seven judges has decided against the resumption of the physical court hearings in the Supreme Court, in view of current Covid-19 situation here for a period at least two weeks for now.
"In view of unanimous medical opinion that while there is a marginal dip in the reported cases of Covid-19 cases in the past couple of days, the status quo needs to be maintained at least for a period of two weeks, the committee of judges decided to review the situation after two weeks," an official statement said.
The committee, led by a second senior-most judge, Justice N V Ramana also resolved that for the present, the court functioning will continue through video conferencing in order to obviate the risk of spread of infection in the premises.
The committee held a discussion through video conference on July 21, with the president of SC Bar Association Dushyant Dave, president SCAoRA Shivaji M Jadhav and BCI chairman Manan Kumar Mishra wherein opinions from medical experts were considered with regard to present status of Covid-19 pandemic.
As the Bar leaders apprised the committee of difficulties faced by the lawyers, the committee said it was fully "conscious and deeply concerned of their difficulties".
It was anxious to gradually restore normalcy in the physical functioning of the court, still, the decision will have to be guided by a holistic assessment of the situation on the basis of medical advise and also considering the safety and wellness of lawyers, litigants, Registry staff and lastly of judges also, it added.
The committee also asked the representatives of Bar to meet the Secretary-General and the concerned Registrar for remedial measures with regard to difficulties faced by the lawyers relating to E-filing and video conferencing.
Since March, the top court has restricted the number of courts which have been conducting hearing of cases through video conferencing only.
As on July 25, Delhi recorded 1142 new cases of Covid-19, taking the total numbers of affected people to 129531