The Supreme Court heard 593 matters via video-conferencing and delivered judgement in 215 of them in a month during the unprecedented nationwide lockdown.<\/p>\n
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As COVID-19 infections spread in the country, the Supreme Court shut its doors to litigants and lawyers on March 23, two days before the lockdown came into force, but opened up to a virtual new way of functioning, albeit with a reduced strength.<\/p>\n
In normal times, the apex court dispose of nearly 3,500 cases on an average a month.<\/p>\n
Two-three benches have been taking up “urgent” matters in virtual courtrooms daily during the lockdown period as compared to up to 16 benches hearing cases in normal times.<\/p>\n
A total of 87 benches heard 593 cases on 17 working days between Match 23 and April 24, according to data provided by the court.<\/p>\n
Though the first phase of the nationwide lockdown for containing the spread of coronavirus started on March 25, the apex court had issued a circular on March 23 restricting entry of advocates and litigants in its premises.<\/p>\n
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The circular had said that only matters involving extreme urgency would be heard by the top court through video-conferencing during the lockdown, which has now been extended till May 3.<\/p>\n
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The data released by the top court said that as on April 24, the apex court had disposed of 84 review petitions.<\/p>\n
It said that out of 87 benches, 34 heard main matters while 53 benches took up review petitions for adjudication.<\/p>\n
The data said that 390 main matters, along with 203 connected cases, were heard during this period.<\/p>\n
It said verdicts were delivered in 215 cases, out of which 174 were connected matters.<\/p>\n
Regarding the problem of technical glitches faced by lawyers during hearing through video-conferencing, an apex court source said this is due to internet connectivity issues at the residences or offices of advocates.<\/p>\n
The source said that Supreme Court judges, who are hearing matters through video-conferencing from their residences, have been provided with internet connectivity with speed of up to 100Mbps at their residences and they have not experienced any difficulties.<\/p>\n
Many lawyers join the hearing through their mobile phones or tablets and they get disconnected when their device receives another call, said the source.<\/p>\n
According to the annual report 2018-19, published by the Supreme Court, a total of 34,653 cases were disposed of between January and October last year, making it an average of 3,465 cases a month.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Supreme Court heard 593 matters via video-conferencing and delivered judgement in 215 of them in a month during the unprecedented nationwide lockdown. As COVID-19 infections spread in the country, the Supreme Court shut its doors to litigants and lawyers on March 23, two days before the lockdown came into force, but opened up to a virtual new way of functioning, albeit with a reduced strength. In normal times, the apex court dispose of nearly 3,500 cases on an average a month. Two-three benches have been taking up “urgent”…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26435,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26691"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26691"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26692,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26691\/revisions\/26692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}