While hearing the Facebook India head vs Delhi Peace and Harmony Committee case, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul of the Supreme Court today commented on how the hybrid mode of hearing is beneficial in certain respects.
Justice Kaul went on to note that for physical hearings, lawyers may have to travel long distances to appear before the Supreme Court, only to have their cases dismissed.
"The dual method of hearing has a longer life span. It eases access to justice. I was there in South and I know how difficult it is to spend on travel and appearing in distant courts. Success rate in admission stage is 20%. So in that stage, it can be through virtual mode", Justice Kaul remarked today.
Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the Delhi Legislative Assembly, too agreed with Justice Kaul.
The bench of Justices Kaul, Dinesh Maheshwari and Hrishikesh Roy suffered two major back to back technical glitches leading to brief adjournments of the virtual court while hearing the matter.
On February 3, Justice Kaul's bench had to wrap up proceedings 30 minutes early than the scheduled time as his courtroom could not be connected via the internet.
Today Justice Maheshwari's connection also got disrupted. The bench had to resume hearing after a short break so that the judge could join back to for the virtual proceedings.
Recently, in a meeting with the Chief Justice of India SA Bobde, the members of the Supreme Court Bar Association were informed that hybrid mode of hearing is being adopted in the Supreme Court, where both physical and virtual hearings will continue until regular physical hearings begin depending on medical expert opinion.
This week, hundreds of lawyers gathered at the Supreme Court premises, near the main building, demanding the resumption of physical hearings. The protesting lawyers have raised concern over how young lawyers are losing out on cases due to virtual hearings.