Senior Advocate Dinesh Kumar Goswami has written a letter addressed to the Chief Justice SA Bobde requesting suspension of summer vacations and extension of the lockdown declared amid COVID-19 Pandemic in India till 30th April.
Senior Advocate Goswami said in his letter that the countrywide 21 days lockdown was declared in anticipation that the situation all over the country would be normalized, however on account of certain developments during the lockdown there has been an increase in the number of persons infected with COVID-19.
Highlighting the necessity of working of Courts even during the Lockdown, Goswami said that “in almost all the potential cities of the country it is neither advisable nor prudent to start the normal working of either that of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, The Hon’ble High Courts or the learned Sub-ordinate Courts of India, as because of all the courts remaining closed / non functioning / partially functioning have left the courts emburdened with heavy load of work in the work flow.”
Moreover since the number of Coronavirus cases have crossed 5000 resulting in casualties of 149 as on April 8, “it is not advisable that the lockdown be called off and normal functioning of the educational institutions, opening markets, regularizing railway services and national and International flight services at least before 30.04.2020 also since there is a heavy amount of work on all the courts all over the country and in the larger interest of all the institutions may it be Educational Institutions, Judicial Bodies, the summer break all over the country may be withdrawn in the situation gripped and suffered on account of sudden outbreak of COVID-19.”
Goswami has urged that the summer vacations of the Educational Institutions and all the Courts all over the country including the Supreme Court of India may be suspended considering the present emergent epidemic situation.
-India Legal Bureau