COVID-19: Delhi HC, district courts' functioning restricted till May 23

The Delhi High Court on Saturday decided to restrict its and district courts' functioning to urgent matters only till May 23, in view of the prevalent situation of COVID-19 pandemic.

As per the government data, till now the coronavirus has infected 85,940 persons and claimed 2,752 lives in India.

The Administrative and General Supervision Committee of the High Court, headed by Chief Justice D N Patel, decided the restriction would be in place till May 23 and the urgent matters would continue to be heard by video conferencing.

"...the functioning of the High Court of Delhi shall continue to remain suspended till May 23 on same terms. The arrangements qua mentioning and hearing of urgent matters by this Court through video conferencing shall continue as before," the administrative order said.

The mentioning of urgent matters is being done through the web link which is available from 9 AM to 10.30 AM on all working days.

The order said all the cases listed in the high court, including before the registrars and joint registrars, from May 18 to 23 have been adjourned to corresponding dates between July 6 to July 11 respectively.

The matters listed in the district courts during this period will also be adjourned and the information will be uploaded on their website, the order said.

Till now, there were two division benches and six single benches to hear the matters through video conferencing. Now the number of single benches has been increased to 10.

Earlier, the High Court on March 25 restricted its and district courts' functioning till April 14. It was then extended to May 3 and later till May 17.