Lower courts in Maha, Goa to resume physical hearings from Feb 1

All lower courts in Maharashtra,Goa and the union territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, andDaman and Diu will resume regular physical hearings of allcases from February 1 onwards.

A notification issued by Bombay High Court registrargeneral S G Dige on Friday stated that all subordinate courtswill go back to ''regular physical hearings'' as they used to''pre-pandemic''.

The notice, however, said all courts will have toadhere to the safety norms prescribed by the state governmentand the Bombay High Court in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since the nationwide lockdown in March last year, theHigh Court and subordinate courts mentioned above had startedhearing a limited number of cases through video-conferencing.

In December last year, some subordinate courts in thestate resumed physical hearings, while the High Court starteda mix of physical and virtual hearings.

At present, the High Court has been conducting virtualhearings once a week and physical hearings on the remainingworking days.

No changes have been notified in the High Court'shearing arrangements as yet.