Bombay High Court bench to revert to virtual hearings from Apr 5 amid Covid-19 surge

A division bench of the Bombay High Court on Saturday decided to revert to virtual hearings from April 5 in view of the surge in Covid-19 cases in Mumbai.

The bench of Justices S S Shinde and Manish Pitale will take up their judicial assignment through video-conferencing instead of physical hearings, a notice issued V R Kachare, Registrar Judicial said.

"As a precautionary measure in view of Covid-19, the hearing of matters will be conducted via video conferencing," the notice said.

Apart from this bench, a single bench of Justice Gautam Patel conducts hearings in a hybrid system, with both physical and video-conferencing options available to lawyers and litigants to argue their case.

All other benches of the High Court are hearing matters physically.

Read: Mumbai sees record spike with 9,090 new Covid-19 cases

Earlier this month, the Nagpur and Aurangabad benches of the High Court reverted to virtual hearing of cases owing to the rise in Covid-19 cases.

Following the nationwide lockdown imposed in March last year, all benches of the Bombay High Court had stopped physical hearings, and were conducting hearings for urgent cases through video-conferencing.

However, in December last year, the principal bench at Mumbai resumed physical hearings for all cases on four out of the five working days of a week.

On Fridays, a few designated courts hear such matters through video-conferencing where lawyers or parties are not based in Mumbai.