Bar Council appreciates Delhi HC move to resume physical functioning of few courts

BCD appealed to all advocates to fully cooperate and make use of the physical opening of courts on rotational basis, to mitigate the hardship and said it is time for the coordination committee and bar associations and the Advocates in General to come forward to assist the Chief Justice and other judges of Delhi High Court to put in place a comprehensive plan and ensure that there is due compliance of the same, to obviate any adverse situation.

The Bar Council of Delhi (BCD) Tuesday appreciated the move of the Delhi High Court to resume physical functioning of one-fourth of the courts from September on an experimental basis and urged the lawyers to cooperate and make use of it to mitigate the hardship faced by them during the COVID-19 pandemic. The high court has been working through video conferencing since March when the lockdown was imposed by the government.

BCD said the conditions due to total closure of the courts has led to worse financial crisis even to survive, despite possible help by it and other respective bar associations. BCD chairman K C Mittal said that on August 16, the registrar general of the high court has stated that to being with, on experimental basis, around one-fourth of the courts can resume physical functioning on a rotational basis from September 1 and rest can continue taking up matters through video conferencing. "A comprehensive plan to regulate the functioning of the Courts is under preparation. This step is in the right direction for resumption of court working and the onus is on all of us to make it success," he said in a statement.

"We are in a situation between devil and deep sea, since on the one hand, we are facing financial crisis but at the same time, eminent danger of spread of coronavirus is looming large. We appreciate the efforts of the Chief Justice and other judges, to commence physical hearing on experimental basis, one-fourth courts can resume gradually from September 1, which is a commendable decision taken for the first time by any high court," the statement said. BCD appealed to all advocates to fully cooperate and make use of the physical opening of courts on rotational basis, to mitigate the hardship and said it is time for the coordination committee and bar associations and the Advocates in General to come forward to assist the Chief Justice and other judges of Delhi High Court to put in place a comprehensive plan and ensure that there is due compliance of the same, to obviate any adverse situation.