Virtual hearings here to stay, courts of law are not public parks: Supreme Court

As the Supreme Court completes a month of hearings through video conferencing amid the COVID-19 lockdown, the top court has issued a note stating that public access to an open court system cannot be “unlimited and unregulated”, while addressing criticism levelled against the possible extension of virtual hearings beyond the lockdown.

A note released from the Supreme Court of India draws a detailed comparison between the open court system and the one being conducted via video conferencing and how both aim to impart justice, reports legal news website BarandBench.com.

"... the traditional Open Court system, in its physical manifestation, and new age Virtual Court System are not antithetical to each other; on the contrary, both systems could definitely co-exist, delivering qualitative justice, wherever deployed in light of extant circumstances," the note states.

However, the note makes it clear that video conferencing as a means of hearing is here to stay and that contentions about how the system is not open to the public is misplaced.

“Access to public in an Open Court system, does not imply in any manner that unlimited and unregulated access to members of public at large has to be granted inside a Court of Law, for its functioning to be witnessed and/or validated by them. Courts of Law as public places, in more senses than one, are different from Public Parks or such other Public Places/Spaces," the Supreme Court's note states.

Some of the broad points that the note puts out in the public domain are:

• Open Court is not an end in itself, but a medium for fair adjudication;

• Open Court hearings cannot be claimed as a matter of absolute right;

• Open Court necessitates access to litigants and public, and/or their representatives, but not their bodily presence together in any given place and that there may be alternate models of Open Court system, in its physical sense.

It states that the argument “that the hearings are not taking place in general public view does not hold water as, even before the pandemic, access of the general public was not being allowed and was regulated so that no inconvenience is caused to the Bar members.”

“It was to minimize security threats and instead, members of the media, as public representatives, were being granted access in each Court room,” reads the note. It further states that there “cannot be divergent views about the fact” that “Justice cannot be spoon-fed”.

“Justice delivery, even at the door-steps of the stakeholders, requires the stakeholders of the ecosystem to diligently discharge their role and duties, prescribed and required in the scheme of things,” reads the note.

As on May 1, 2020, there has been a total of 22 days of hearing with 116 benches sitting to hear cases. There were 43 benches for main matters and 73 benches for review petitions.

The Court has delivered about 57 judgments during its sittings through the video conferencing facility and rendered 268 verdicts in connected matters.

While giving out details of how the top court functioned, some examples of foreign apex courts have also been cited.

From March 23, the United Kingdom's Supreme Court building was closed to the public and the registry started operating remotely. However from the available video recordings, at least until March 18, open court hearings took place in the court complex. A video of a hearing dated April 22 indicates remote participation.

In another example, all oral arguments in the US Supreme Court scheduled for the month of March and April 2020 were postponed to May 2020. As indicated on its website, hearings (telephonic conference) have been scheduled to begin from 4th May. A total of 10 cases have been listed.

Other examples cited include courts from Singapore, Australia and Canada, among several others.