By – Rakshita Jain
– Rakshita Jain
The Supreme Court has issued a notice requesting lawyers and in-person petitioners to join virtual hearing before the top court using laptop/ desktop with stable and proper internet and connection without any disruption and to avoid using mobile phones for the same.
This decision has been taken to avoid any disturbance and to avoid disruption in the court hearings and inconvenience to the judges. In addition to that, the court included that all advocates and party-in-person are requested to join the cisco Webex application for joining the court hearings through video conference using it via a laptop or desktop with stable and proper internet connectivity, preferably wired, to avoid any disruption and noise in the court proceedings and inconvenience to the judges. Requested to avoid joining the VC hearings through a mobile phone.
However, the Lawyers have been directed to join virtual proceedings through one device only and to use headset enabled microphone along with an audio system. The Court requested to join through VC hearings preferably using a headset and above said as per the notice.
As per the notice, it stated to close all background applications and programs running on your devices for better quality and video conference experience. Today, the Chief Justice of India NV Ramana-led Bench had expressed its frustration at advocates appearing for virtual hearings through their mobile phones directly. How ten matters had to be protracted for the day because the judges couldn’t see or hear advocates appearing through their mobile phones. The judges did not have the energy to hear cases in this manner as stated by Justice Hima Kohli who was also present on the bench. The bench expressed the same above said problems and said we may have to ban this mobile business and added by stating that “Mr counsel, you are now practicing in the Supreme Court and appear daily. Can’t you afford to have a desktop to argue?” during proceedings.
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