[BREAKING] Supreme Court issues circular on physical hearing; Virtual hearing option provided on miscellaneous days

The Supreme Court of India has officially announced that hearings before it will be via physical mode from April 4, Monday..Importantly, the Court has decided to provide an option to litigants and lawyers to appear virtually for their cases on miscellaneous days, i.e. Mondays and Fridays.A circular to that effect was issued on Friday modifying the standard operating procedures which were notified by the Court on October 7, 2021 and January 21, 2022.For appearing via virtual mode on Mondays and Fridays, the concerned advocate-on-record has to apply online on the website of the Supreme Court after the causelist for the concerned day is published.The Supreme Court is currently hearing matters physically non-miscellaneous days, i.e Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursday while cases are heard compulsorily via video conference on miscellaneous days i.e. Mondays and Fridays.From April 4, lawyers will have the option to choose between physical and virtual hearings on miscellaneous days. .The Supreme Court first started hearing cases via video conference on March 23, 2020 after the outbreak of Covid-19. The top court had issued a circular on March 23 that year suspending the entry of lawyers and litigants to the court premises and directing that only urgent cases will be taken up for hearing through video conferencing.It had subsequently attempted to restart physical hearings in March 2021 before the second wave of pandemic forced the top court to go back to virtual mode.The Court had again restarted limited physical hearing in October 2021 before once again going virtual in January 2022 due to the third wave.After the cases declined, it restarted physical hearings on non-miscellaneous days in February 2022 which is currently continuing..[Read SOP]