Supreme Court Permits High Courts Which Stopped Hybrid Options To Be Impleaded In Plea Seeking Virtual Hearing As Fundamental right

In a batch of petitions seeking declaration of virtual hearing as a Fundamental Right, the Supreme Court, on Monday, allowed impleadment of High Courts, which have stopped virtual hearing.

Advocate, Mr. Siddharth R Gupta appearing for the petitioner, informed a Bench comprising Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Sudhanshu Dhulia that some High Courts which includes High Court of Gujarat High Court and that of Madhya Pradesh, were not allowing requests for virtual hearing and sought permission to implead them to the present proceeding.

He submitted that last year in August, the Uttarakhand High Court had stopped virtual hearing completely. Other High Courts, he indicated, have followed suit.

"It started with the Uttarakhand High Court last Aug, it stopped virtual courts completely and like a cascading effect all HCs have stopped barring few."

He urged the Bench to consider the application pertaining to virtual hearing before the High Courts at priority, while the main issue, he suggested, can be decided on a later date. The Bench agreed to consider the same.

Other implement applications mentioned at the hearing were also allowed by the Bench.

The petition has been filed by an organization of lawyers called "All India Association of Jurists" and LiveLaw's Legal Reporter Sparsh Upadhyay challenging the decision of the Uttarakhand High Court to revert to complete physical hearings, without hybrid option. It was contended that the High Courts of Uttarakhand, Bombay, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala were not providing joining links for attending cases through virtual mode. The petition argued that the denial of access to the facility of hearing cases through virtual mode is akin to denial of Fundamental Rights under Articles 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India. In view of the same mandamus was sought against the Registrar Generals of the 4 High Courts.

[Case Title : All India Association of Jurists and another v. High Court of Uttarakhand and others]

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