HC bench hears matters via video conferencing from two states

Transcending distances, two judges of a division bench of the Delhi High Court heard matters via video conferencing with one of them in Chennai and the other in the national capital.

Justice Hima Kohli, who was heading the bench, was in Delhi while the newest addition to the high court -- Justice Subramonium Prasad -- was in Chennai, sources in the Registrar General's office said.

Justice Prasad had left for Chennai before the lockdown was announced by the central government.

Several Indian courts are conducting proceedings via video conferencing in the wake of COVID-19 outbreak and the Delhi High Court started doing so from the last week of March.

The bench of Justices Kohli and Prasad on Monday heard two petitions of which one pertained to providing food, water, electricity and sanitation to thousands of homeless persons, daily wage workers, stranded and living in the open along the bank of river Yamuna at Kashmere Gate here.

The bench directed the Delhi government to continue with steps taken by it to ensure there is no dearth of food, water, electricity and sanitation requirements where the homeless are living.

The other matter before the court was a plea by a pregnant woman seeking to abort her foetus as it suffered from several abnormalities and its chances of survival after birth was bleak.

In the second petition, order of the court is awaited, though one of the lawyers who appeared in the matter said that the bench has allowed the woman's plea.