Supreme Court resumes physical hearing for first time since March 2020, allows journalists inside courtrooms

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday reopened for physical hearings for the first time since March 2020. The apex court had recently issued new SoPs for hybrid hearings as per which all cases on Wednesdays and Thursdays will be heard only in the physical presence of the counsels/parties in courtrooms.

The Supreme Court Bar Association, a registered body of lawyers practising in the Apex Court, had urged the Chief Justice to revert to the physical mode of hearing since the Covid-19 surge has receded.

The modified SOP gives an option to the lawyers to opt for either physical or virtual mode on Tuesdays. In the modified rules, therefore, there would be a 15-minute break at the discretion of the Bench during physical hearings. The courtrooms had to be vacated during this interval for being sanitised.

Lawyers would be called in a case one after the other. They can wait at the Bar lounges in the building for their cases to be called. This was to avoid crowds in the corridors, they were told.

Journalists allowed inside courtrooms in physical proceedings

The Supreme Court had on Wednesday decided to allow journalists inside courtrooms to witness the proceedings to be conducted in physical mode subject to adherence to usual COVID-19 protocols.

“With the physical hearing in the Supreme Court of India commencing tomorrow (Thursday, 21 October 2021), it has been decided to allow the media persons, subject to usual COVID restrictions, into the courtrooms for covering the proceedings,” the apex court said in the release.

However, given the limitation of space inside the courtrooms due to the need to strictly maintain physical distancing, it is requested that the media persons may observe self-regulation and not to over-crowd the courtrooms, it said.

“Media persons may even consider issuing a roster among themselves for this purpose which will help them in sharing the notes from all the courtrooms at the end of the day's proceedings. This advisory is issued with the purpose of keeping all the stakeholders safe by way of adhering to COVID appropriate behaviour,” it said.

The top court has been hearing cases through video conference since March last year due to the pandemic and several bar bodies and lawyers have been demanding that physical hearings should resume immediately.