Supreme Court junks plea seeking evening courts, virtual hearing facilities in all district courts

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a plea seeking the establishment of virtual hearing or video conference facilities in all district courts across the country..A Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud, and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra observed that the country is too large and complex to issue such directions through judicial orders.The Court added such issues are being looked into as part of the ongoing e-Courts project. "Do you know how many district courts are there in the country? ... We cannot lay down one-size-fits-all solutions. The country is too large and complex to lay down such directions. These issues are being looked at in phase 3 of e-courts and an ongoing project of technological revolution. But there cannot be judicial directions," the Court observed..The petitioner's counsel pressed for the plea, underscoring that virtual hearing facilities would aid in the presentation of evidence and witnesses.However, the Court maintained that there cannot be public interest litigation for all such demands. It added that the High Courts will have to be trusted on how they choose to spend funds allocated for the development of technical facilities, depending on the unique issues each State may face. "90 to 95 per cent tranche of funds was spent by High Courts in the first month. Meghalaya High Court has an issue of finding vendors and their problem is different than Bombay High Court. All issues are different. High Courts have robust ICT committees and we need to trust them," CJI observed..The plea had also prayed for setting up evening courts. CJI Chandrachud pointed out that the lawyers themselves would oppose such a move, given the heavy workload they already face."You have prayed for evening courts ... the lawyers will oppose. Suppose we direct this... after regular days work they will argue in evening courts," he said..The Court proceeded to dismiss the plea. .Advocate Kishan Chand Jain appeared for the petitioner.