Supreme Court asks all HCs to inform about status of virtual hearings

The Supreme Court on Friday asked all high courts and various tribunals if they have suspended the virtual hybrid hearing of the cases.

The court also sought to know and reasons behind such decisions if they have discontinued hybrid hearings.

A bench Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra was hearing a plea by Sarvesh Mathur, who was appearing-in-person.

Mathur said Punjab and Haryana High Court is not allowing video conferencing for which the entire infrastructure has been created during Covid-19 pandemic, but after that they have completely stopped it.

He claimed the high court has completely disbanded the use of video conferencing facilities.

The bench issued notice to the registrar general of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and also to all registrar generals of the high courts.

“All registrar generals intimate to this court, whether hearings in the hybrid mode are being allowed, whether the facility has been disbanded,” the bench said.

The court asked the registrar generals to file an affidavit within two weeks.

“Thank you for bringing to our attention, we are issuing notice to all the high courts, you have given us a platform for doing what we all were thinking for a long time. We have to issue some directions to the high courts,” the bench told Mathur.

A counsel submitted that NCLT, New Delhi, has come with a notification last week that it is closing online hearing, and all the tribunals could be issued notice as they all had the infrastructure.

“They were doing it during Covid, now they have shut it down,” the counsel said.

The court then issued notice to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) and the National Green Tribunal (NGT) and sought responses from their registrars as well on the issue of virtual hearings.

The court sought a response from the official of NCLT, NCLAT, NGT to file an affidavit within 10 days.