Tech evolution for ensuring hybrid mode of hearing is work in progress: SC

Technological advancement to ensure hybrid mode of hearing in all high courts is a work in progress, the Supreme Court said on Friday.

The top court rejected the submission that access to virtual hearings be declared a fundamental right saying this will not serve the cause.

"Only declaring it a fundamental right will not help. We have to ensure that facilities has to be there and we have to ensure that adequate facilities are there in the hilly regions also like say Meghalaya...," it said.

The top court, which has been issuing slew of directions from time to time to ensure that no lawyer and litigant are denied access to video conferencing facility or hearing through hybrid mode, has deferred the hearing on a plea to February 12.

The bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra asked lawyers Gaurav Agarwal and K Parmeshwar, who are assisting it as amicus curiae, to hold further deliberations with the high courts and file an undated status report.

The amicus curiae have held talks with the high court officials for ensuring hybrid mode of hearing there and they will file suggestions to the bench for improving the existing technical facilities.

"This (ensuring hybrid mode of hearing) is really a matter of upgrading. This is a work in progress," the CJI said after taking note of the submissions of the amicus curiae that they have talked with the apex court officials and analysed facilities available at high courts with that of top court.

Earlier, the CJI-led bench had expressed its anguish over the minimal use of technology by high courts and other courts.

On October 6, last year, it had said no high court in the country shall deny access to video conference or hearing through hybrid mode to lawyers and litigants after two weeks and made clear that technology now is not a matter of choice for judges.

"The question is not whether a particular judge is tech friendly. If you want to be a judge then you have to be tech-friendly. It is like how a judge can say that I do not know what 'res judicata' (a common legal principle which says one cannot claim judicial relief twice in one case). Every judge in the system has to be trained," the bench had said.

"Technology is no longer a matter of choice for judges," the CJI had said.

It had issued several directions for extending the facilities for hybrid mode of hearing across 25 high courts and tribunals.

The bench had directed all the state governments to provide necessary infrastructure for ensuring smooth functioning of hybrid mode of hearings in all high courts.

"Adequate facilities like WiFi be made available free of charge to advocates and litigants appearing before the high courts," it said.

The video conferencing links must be made available in the cause list of the concerned court itself and there should be no requirement to make a separate application to appear through virtual mode, it had said.

It also directed all high courts to put in place a standard operating procedure (SOP) for litigants to avail access to hybrid/video conferencing hearings within four weeks, it said.

It had asked Delhi High Court judge Rajiv Shakdher to frame the SoP on hybrid hearings with the help of amicus curiae and share the document with the high courts.

Prior to this, the top court on September 15 had sought the response of all the high courts and some tribunals on whether they have disbanded the hybrid mode of hearing cases.

The apex court had taken note of the submissions made by petitioner Sarvesh Mathur, who appeared in person, that the Punjab and Haryana High Court has stopped virtual hearings, which is causing inconvenience to the litigants.