The Advocates association of Bengaluru has written to Registrar General of Karnataka High Court for enabling the option of digital hearing only when the court has no other option left.
The AAB has also mentioned that many lawyers are very concerned about this change in the hearing pattern by stating the following incident of Karnataka High court for opening of Karnataka state borders for medical emergency.
“In a recent matter before the High Court of Kerala with regard to opening of the State borders for medical emergency, the Advocates Association, Bengaluru, had filed an application to implead itself as a party respondent to the proceedings. The Hon’ble judges, refused to hear us on the application and asked the registry to ‘mute’ the mic. The Hon’ble Court was perhaps justified in denying a hearing, since the application was not listed, however to ‘mute’ the lawyer would with great respect, be not the right way to proceed. Kindly do not think of this as a complaint, it is narrated here in order to point out how technology can be used, to easily deny a party to the proceedings of an opportunity of being heard.”
The letter also mentioned about the difficulty being faced while implementing the Video conferencing hearing by judges of Dharwad and Kalbhurgi benches of Karnataka High court.
It was further mentioned that “it is one thing to have a set process in place to have video conferencing for hearing cases to meet contingencies such as the one we are facing at the moment, due to the Covid 19 pandemic, and a totally different issue to have it as a regular process.”
CJI Bobde had also orally remarked, “This cannot be seen as a temporary issue. Technology is here to stay”, when Senior Advocate Vikas Singh made suggestions for continuation of Video conferencing. The suggestions were considered by Supreme Court as it was stated by the advocate that change in the working of judicial system is a need of time and is necessary.
The AAB letter comes after Supreme Court issued a series of directions in a matter taken up suo moto to look into guidelines for the functioning of the Court by video conferencing during the COVID-19 lockdown.
