April 16, 2020
Supreme Court of India releases fresh set of SOPs for Mentioning, e-Filing and Video Conferencing Hearing
[ by Legal Era News Network ]
The Supreme Court has issued a fresh set of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) with the suggestions of the Bar Associations for e-filing, mentioning and hearing of urgent matters through video conferencing. The circular is set to supersede the previous circulars dated 23rd March 2020 and 26th March 2020.
The Circular directs the constitution of the Honourable Bench(es) to hear only matters involving extreme urgency, which are to be decided by the Honourable Presiding Judge of such Bench(es) on the basis of prayer made by Advocate-on-Record/Party-in-person by way of a signed and verified mentioning-application containing a synopsis of extreme urgency not exceeding one page.
The Chief Justice of India has given detailed instructions for Mentioning, e-Filing and Video Conferencing Hearing. According to the circular only urgent matters shall be taken up for hearing.
MENTIONING & E-FILING
According to the circular, the Advocate-on-Record/Party-in-person is required to file the petition/miscellaneous application, preferably through the e-filing mode available on the Supreme Court website in matters involving extreme urgency.
The parties shall not be permitted to rely upon any document other than the documents duly filed along with the petition/miscellaneous application in conformity with the Rules.
The mentioning-application has to be submitted only by e-mail at the email address [email protected] and should be received by 5 PM two days’ preceding the date of hearing.
The mentioning-application must also contain a separate paragraph giving consent that the matter may be taken up through the video-conferencing mode.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR JOINING VIDEO CONFERENCING
The circular mentions that the matters shall be heard by the Honourable Bench through web-based video-conferencing system on the VIDYO platform hosted on the servers of National Data Centre of National Informatics Centre, Government of India.
The circular has provided a detailed step by step procedure to be followed for Video Conferencing.
Parties are required to stay online till Honourable Bench concludes the hearing of their matter, whereafter the parties may disconnect from video-conference.
Further, according to the circular, “During hearing through video-conferencing, the parties may kindly keep in mind that they are participating in COURT PROCEEDINGS, and hence it is expected that they would not resort to any indecorous conduct or dress or comment; further, parties are required to ensure that the proceedings by videoconference are neither recorded/stored nor broadcast, in any manner whatsoever, as recording/copying/storing and/or broadcasting, by any means, of the hearings and proceedings before the Supreme Court of India are expressly prohibited.”
Lastly, the circular mentions that “after publication of cause list, a WhatsApp group may be created by the Registry before the hearing of the matters where the participants may raise any query related to video conferencing.”
Helpline Telephone Numbers have also been provided in the circular.