No harm if we restore the system back to normal: Supreme Court in plea for virtual courts to continue

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear at length a batch of petitions seeking continuance of virtual and hybrid mode of hearings, even as courts across the country have started to revert to physical hearings (All India Association of Jurists v. High Court of Uttarakhand)..The Bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and Abhay Oka said,"We will hear you all at length. We will give a date in December. Just wait. There's a huge list of mentioning before us.".When the Court hinted that the petitions may be infructuous in light of the fact that courts are reopening physically, Senior Advocate Sidharth Luthra argued,"It is about access to...courts through affordable, cost-effective and cheap mode. By the time we wait for all the courts to open physically, everything would become irreversible."Luthra also pointed out that the Madhya Pradesh High Court had done away with hybrid mode of hearings after spending so much money and resources on infrastructure for the same..Justice Rao then said,"See Mr Luthra, it is not as simple as you are saying, there are many issues (like) effectiveness of personal presence of Senior Counsel. The other day Mr Patwalia appeared before us physically for a final hearing matter and we could feel the difference in his submissions......After all, it has happened for 70 years, there is no harm if we restore the system back to normal as it had been.".Luthra then prayed for a date for hearing the case at length, while stating that the Registry was not listing the matter. The Court eventually acceded to his request and said that it would hear the matter in December..An application was recently filed before the Supreme Court challenging the decision of the Madhya Pradesh High Court to revert to physical hearings with effect from October 25.It was submitted that over the past one year, an amount of more than ₹100 crore has been invested in upgrading the infrastructure at the Madhya Pradesh High Court to enable facilities for video conference/virtual court hearings..100 crore spent to enable virtual courts: Application in Supreme Court to quash Madhya Pradesh HC decision to revert to physical hearings.the plea filed by All India Jurists Association, a body of more than 5,000 lawyers across the country, has challenged the decision of the Uttarakhand High Court to revert to full physical functioning from August 24 to the exclusion of virtual mode of hearing cases.The plea filed through advocate Sriram Parakkat and drawn by advocate Prerna Robin stated that the August 16 notification of the Uttarakhand High Court is a death knell for the very idea of virtual courts which is an accessible, affordable justice in the country as observed by the E-Committee of Supreme Court.The plea besides challenging the decision of the Uttarakhand High Court, also sought a direction to restrain all High Courts from denying access to lawyers through virtual mode of hearing and video conference on the ground of availability of the option of physical hearing..[Read Order]