E-Paper
Supreme Court to return to near full strength hearings from Monday
This will be the first time that nearly the entire strength of the apex court is sitting to hear cases simultaneously ever since video conference hearings started.
Twenty eight of the 30 judges of the Supreme Court will sit on Monday to hear cases through video conference, the highest since March 2020, when the court sat at its full strength through physical hearings. The top court has been functioning in a restricted manner since March 23, when it started hearing cases through video conference in view of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Eight benches sitting on Monday will comprise 3 judges while 2 benches will have 2 judges each. Two single-judge benches will also sit to hear transfer petitions. Those two single-judge benches will, however, have judges who are already part of the 3-judge benches.
Two judges, Justices Vineet Saran and Mohan M Shantanagoudar will not be sitting.
This trend will continue the entire week with most days having nearly 10 benches sitting each day.
This will be the first time that nearly the entire strength of the apex court is sitting to hear cases simultaneously ever since video conference hearings started.
Initially, the court used to hear 15 to 20 cases per day with only 1 or 2 benches sitting each day. The number was steadily increased and currently, 5 to 6 benches sit everyday and hear more than 200 cases per day.
These numbers still don’t match up to normal times when at least 500 to 700 cases are heard by the apex court on a single day alone.
The court issued a circular on March 23 suspending entry of lawyers and litigants to the court premises and directing that only extremely urgent cases would be taken up for hearing through video conferencing during the lockdown period.
The summer vacation which is usually seven weeks long was cut short to two weeks this year so as to make up for the reduced number of cases which are being heard through video conference.
The hearings in Supreme Court are conducted through the Vidyo app which can be downloaded on mobile phones and desktop. The platform is hosted on the servers of the National Data Centre of National Informatics Centre.
