Virtual access to justice: Ensure no lawyer is denied hybrid hearing, Supreme Court tells HCs

Satya Prakash

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New Delhi, October 6

Noting that high courts have to adapt to technology, the Supreme Court on Friday directed all high courts to ensure that no lawyer was denied access to video conferencing facilities for hearing and asked them to comply with the order in two weeks.

“After the lapse of two weeks from this order, no high court shall deny access to video conference facility or hearing through hybrid facility to any member of the bar and litigants,” a Bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud said.

“If you want to be a judge then you have to be tech-friendly…Technology is no longer a matter of choice,” it said.

The top court asked high courts to put in place a standard operating procedure (SoP) for availing access to hybrid or video conferencing hearings in four weeks.

It also directed the Union IT Ministry to ensure internet connectivity to courts in north eastern states to ensure access to online hearings.

Acting on a PIL on the issue, the top court had on September 15 sought to know from all high courts and certain tribunals if they had disbanded the hybrid mode of hearing that allowed lawyers and litigants to appear virtually through video-conferencing as well.

The Bench asked high courts of Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir & Ladakh, Tripura and Uttarakhand to file their responses by October 13, failing which the Registrar Generals and IT Registrars of the high court concerned shall remain personally present before it on the next date.

On behalf of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, senior counsel Nidhesh Gupta informed the Bench that hybrid hearings had started in six courtrooms and tenders had been invited for upgrading the video conferencing infrastructure.

“You (Punjab and Haryana HC) are not one of the grave offenders and tech-indifferent high courts… The Government of India has sanctioned Rs. 7,000 crores but nothing is happening…there are many such high courts,” said the Bench which called the Allahabad High Court the “complete offender”.