Delhi HC, district courts to hold virtual hearings till May 15 amid COVID-19 surge

File pic: Zee News

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday (April 23) said that the existing system of hearings via video conferencing will continue till May 15, in view of "alarming rise" in COVID-19 cases in the national capital. The HC issued similar directions for the District Courts which have also been ordered to conduct virtual hearings only till May 15.

According to an order issued by the office of the Delhi High Court Registrar General Manoj Jain, "All the benches of this court shall continue to take up only extremely urgent matters filed in the year 2021, through video conferencing mode."

It further said, "All the courts of Registrars and Joint Registrars (Judicial) shall also continue to take up only urgent cases of their respective courts, through video conferencing mode." It also added that all other pending routine or non-urgent matters listed between April 26 and May 15 shall stand adjourned en bloc to dates between July 9 to July 31.

Earlier on April 18, the high court said that from April 19 onwards it will only take up "extremely urgent matters" filed this year. On April 8, it had decided that from April 9 to April 23 it will take up matters "through virtual mode only" in the wake of rising COVID-19 cases.

The high court had commenced complete physical functioning from March 15 onwards. Subsequently, it had said that virtual or hybrid proceedings would be held on the request of lawyers.

The court was holding proceedings through video conferencing, following the outbreak of COVID-19 in March last year, and its functioning was restricted to urgent matters from March 16 last year.

From March 25, 2020, the functioning of the high court and district courts was further restricted and no physical hearing was being conducted due to the spread of COVID-19. From September last year, a few benches started holding physical courts every day on a rotation basis.

Some of them also started holding hybrid proceedings, wherein lawyers have the option to attend the hearing via video conference instead of appearing in person. 

Notably, the national capital witnessed over 26,000 fresh coronavirus infections in last 24 hours. Delhi on Thursday logged a record 306 COVID-19 deaths and 26,169 cases with a positivity rate of 36.24 per cent, highest since the pandemic began a year ago.

The city has reported over 1,750 deaths due to the deadly virus in the last 10 days, and has recorded 24,638 cases and 249 deaths on Wednesday, as the positivity rate stood at 31.28 per cent, according to the state health department bulletin. 

On Tuesday, 28,395 cases, the highest single-day tally so far, were registered with a positivity rate of 32.82 per cent. The capital had witnessed 23,686 cases with a positivity rate of 26.12 per cent on Monday.

A total of 72,208 tests, including 48,346 RT-PCR tests, were conducted on Wednesday, the bulletin said. The number of tests is significantly less than the average of around 90,000 tests a day being conducted in the national capital. It added that over 8.51 lakh patients have recovered in Delhi, so far.

(With Agency Inputs)