Vacation Bench Of Delhi High Court Holds Virtual Hearing Till Late Night For The Third Time

In a rare sight, the vacation benches of the Delhi High Court on Wednesday comprising of Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani and Justice Jasmeet Singh held virtual court simultaneously till 10:10 PM and 9:40 PM respectively in the night for the third time. 

This is the third instance wherein vacation benches of the Delhi High Court have been hearing the matters late night in a month's summer vacations.

Earlier this week, a single-judge bench of Justice Jasmeet Singh held virtual court till 11:30 PM. Before that, a division bench of Justices Naveen Chawla and Asha Menon had also heard vacation bench matters till late night on June 16.

On Wednesday morning, both the judges had assembled virtual court as a division bench. The bench had heard over 20 matters listed before it after which Justice Bhambhani and Justice Jasmeet Singh had again assembled virtual Court as single benches, hearing the vacation matters listed before them.

As a division bench, the Court heard various matters including an appeal against a single bench order which refused to restrain the producers from using the name, caricature, and/or likelihood of the actor in the movie.

Holding the virtual court as a single judge, Justice Bhambhani heard over 40 matters listed before his bench and the bench had risen late in the night.

On the other hand, Justice Jasmeet Singh heard over 45 matters.

Regular court hours on normal working days start at 10.30 am and go on till 5.00 pm. The Delhi High Court is on summer vacation from June 5 to July 2.

As part of the current system of hearing notified especially for the vacations, Division and Single Judge benches of Justices Rekha Palli, Amit Bansal, Navin Chawla, Asha Menon, Anup Jairam Bhambhani, Jasmeet Singh, C Hari Shankar, Subramonium Prasad have been hearing only urgent matters during the course of vacation.

The High Court's circular notified through the Registrar General in this regard, stated during the vacations the court will sit on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and such other days it thinks fit. It further stated that the pre-vacation practice of urgent mentioning of matters through an online system would continue even during the vacations, however, no physical mentioning of urgent matters would be entertained.

The Central Government had notified the appointment of then-advocate, Justice Jasmeet Singh as a judge of the Delhi High Court on February 22.