Supreme Court Advocate On Record Association Suggests Measures For Effective Hearing In SC

The Supreme Court Advocate On Record Association ("SCAORA") has made a representation before the Supreme Court with suggestions to better enable the smooth hearing of cases during the nationwide lockdown while the country battles the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the Supreme Court continues to hear urgent The Supreme Court Advocate On Record Association ("SCAORA") has made a representation before the Supreme Court with suggestions to better enable the smooth hearing of cases during the nationwide lockdown while the country battles the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the Supreme Court continues to hear urgent petitions, via the system of video conferencing, SCAORA has deemed certain steps to be necessary in ensuring further effectiveness of the system especially regarding the hearing of PILs and other matters where standing counsels of all States and Union Territories are required to be present.

In order to allow counsels to assist the Court better, it has been urged that the following suggestions be taken up on an urgent and emergent basis-

- Office Reports be uploaded on the official website before a PIL is heard. This would enable State Counsels to have confirmation regarding the documents which have been taken on record and thus avoid any confusion or chaos that has ensued recently at times. Currently, there are times where a lawyer is not sure whether these documents were taken on record or not, as they have no way to find out after E-filing them.

- Allocation of time slots for hearing a PIL where various counsels are to appear. Since only a limited number of Video Conferencing (VC) links can be issued for a particular hearing, a number of State Counsels are unable to attend the same. To rectify this, it has been suggested that matters which involve all State Counsels may be heard in two or three time slots, to accommodate all concerned, and these slots and related VC links be reflected in the cause list.

- Marking of Appearance of advocates on designated WhatsApp groups. Since a WhatsApp group is created to coordinate the matters which are to be heard on a particular day, it is suggested that the official who records the order may also be made part of that group to record the day's appearances. Alternately, it has been suggested that advocates on that group mark their appearance through the group itself and forward the same to the concerned official

c. Marking of Appearance of Advocates/Appearance slips-As currently the system to marking of Appearance of the Advocates/Standing Counsels has not been set up, it is the suggestion of SCAORA that the whatsapp groups that are created on a particular day for hearing of the matter on that day, the concerned official who will be recording the orders of the said day may also be added on the said group and the Appearance of the Advocates can be marked vide the said whatsapp group. In the alternative, the Advocates/Standing Counsels can mark their appearance through the group and the same may be forwarded to the concerned official.

petitions, via the system of video conferencing, SCAORA has deemed certain steps to be necessary in ensuring further effectiveness of the system especially regarding the hearing of PILs and other matters where standing counsels of all States and Union Territories are required to be present.

In order to allow counsels to assist the Court better, it has been urged that the following suggestions be taken up on an urgent and emergent basis-

- Office Reports be uploaded on the official website before a PIL is heard. This would enable State Counsels to have confirmation regarding the documents which have been taken on record and thus avoid any confusion or chaos that has ensued recently at times. Currently, there are times where a lawyer is not sure whether these documents were taken on record or not, as they have no way to find out after E-filing them.

- Allocation of time slots for hearing a PIL where various counsels are to appear. Since only a limited number of Video Conferencing (VC) links can be issued for a particular hearing, a number of State Counsels are unable to attend the same. To rectify this, it has been suggested that matters which involve all State Counsels may be heard in two or three-time slots, to accommodate all concerned, and these slots and related VC links be reflected in the cause list.

- Marking of Appearance of advocates on designated WhatsApp groups. Since a WhatsApp group is created to coordinate the matters which are to be heard on a particular day, it is suggested that the official who records the order may also be made part of that group to record the day's appearances. Alternately, it has been suggested that advocates on that group mark their appearance through the group itself and forward the same to the concerned official

c. Marking of Appearance of Advocates/Appearance slips-As currently, the system to marking of Appearance of the Advocates/Standing Counsels has not been set up, it is the suggestion of SCAORA that the WhatsApp groups that are created on a particular day for hearing of the matter on that day, the concerned official who will be recording the orders of the said day may also be added on the said group and the Appearance of the Advocates can be marked vide the said whatsapp group. In the alternative, the Advocates/Standing Counsels can mark their appearance through the group and the same may be forwarded to the concerned official. 

Read Letter

To,

The Secretary General,

Supreme Court of India,

Tilak Marg,

Delhi-110001

Respected Sir,

This is in continuation of the earlier representation dated 08.04.2020 addressed by the Supreme Court Advocate On Record Association ("SCAORA") relating to the measures suggested to be taken for the listing and hearing of matters during the present situation. By way of the present representation the SCAORA wants to bring to light the steps that is deemed necessary for further effectiveness of the said system more specifically for the hearing of Public Interest Litigations ("PIL") and other matters involving the presence of the standing counsels of all States and UTs to taken up by the Hon'ble Court. It is requested that the said steps may be taken on an urgent and emergent basis so as to enable the Standing Counsels of all the States to assist the Hon'ble Court effectively during the present situation i.e. the spread of COVID-19 and the need for social distancing.

a. Uploading of Office Report before the hearing of PIL's:- At present as the filings of documents to be submitted to the Court is happening by way of E-filing, there are times when the State Counsels are not certain of whether the documents filed by them have been taken on record or not and hence the same leads to chaos and confusion for the Standing Counsels before the scheduled hearing of the PIL. In view thereof, it is the suggestion of the SCAORA that office reports be uploaded on the official website before the hearing of the said PIL's for ease of convenience and confirmation of the documents being taken on record.

b. Time Slots for hearing of PIL's- As only limited Video-Conferencing links can be issued for hearing of each matter listed, all the Standing Counsels involved in the hearing of PIL cannot attend the same, the issue has become a concern for the Standing Counsels. In view thereof, it is the suggestion of SCAORA that the hearing of the said PIL's be conducted in time slots of two or more so as to enable the participation of all the Standing Counsels in the hearing of the said PIL's. Further, the time slots in which the hearing would be conducted and the Video-Conferencing links would be issued should also be reflected in the Cause list for the particular day.

c. Marking of Appearance of Advocates/Appearance slips-As currently the system to marking of Appearance of the Advocates/Standing Counsels has not been set up, it is the suggestion of SCAORA that the whatsapp groups that are created on a particular day for hearing of the matter on that day, the concerned official who will be recording the orders of the said day may also be added on the said group and the Appearance of the Advocates can be marked vide the said whatsapp group. In the alternative, the Advocates/Standing Counsels can mark their appearance through the group and the same may be forwarded to the concerned official.

It is most humbly requested that immediate steps may be taken to look into the aforementioned issues being faced by the lawyers on a day to day basis concerning various issues especially pertaining to the hearing of PIL's and other matters involving the presence of the standing counsels of all States and UTs to taken up by the Hon'ble Court.

Thanking you

Yours sincerely,

Joseph Aristotle S.

Hony. Secretary, SCAORA