The number of COVID-infected patients is on the rise in India, due to which, the CJI has announced that lawyers will now be able to work from home.
The number of COVID infected patients has now reached 4,435 on Wednesday.
As COVID Infections Surge, Supreme Court To Adopt Hybrid Working Mode
On Wednesday, Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud noted the growing number of COVID-19 cases in the nation and said that the Supreme Court is open to hearing attorneys via video conference.
In response to recent media reports, the Chief Justice of India and Justice J. B. Pardiwala, sitting as a bench, stated that the court would be more than willing to allow attorneys to appear via the hybrid mode.
As per CJI Chandrachud, “We saw newspaper reports on rising Covid cases. Lawyers can use hybrid mode. If you choose to appear online, we will hear you. We can hear you through video conferencing mode also.”
After considering the low infection incidence and the amount of Covid cases in Delhi and across the nation, the Supreme Court decided to resume adjudicating cases through physical hearings as of April 4, 2022.
Supreme Court’s Experiments With Hybrid Hearing Method
The supreme court has long been experimenting with the hybrid hearing method, which combines physical and virtual hearings.
Even after actual hearings resumed, the Supreme Court began live-streaming the Constitution bench proceedings via the Supreme Court app and YouTube.
According to data from the Union health ministry, India registered 4,435 new COVID-19 infections on Wednesday, the largest daily increase in 163 days (five months and 13 days), while the number of active cases rose to 23,091.
The new instances brought India’s COVID-19 total to 4.47 billion. (4,47,33,719). The report showed that 15 deaths brought the total death toll to 5,30,916.
In the last few days, there has been an increase in the number of Covid cases in India, with the daily fresh infections fluctuating between 2,994 on April 1 and 3,824 on April 2 and 3,641 on April 3 before marginally reducing to 3038 on Tuesday.
