Taking cognisance of newspaper reports regarding a recent spike in the cases of Covid-19 in New Delhi, the Supreme Court on Wednesday told the lawyers that they were free to exercise the hybrid option and appear virtually during the hearings.
During the mentioning of cases today, the Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice J.B. Pardiwala took note of the newspaper reports, which said that cases of Novel Coronavirus were again rising across the country, especially in the Delhi-NCR region.
While noting that many lawyers were appearing online during the court proceedings, the CJI said that if the advocates chose to appear through video-conferencing, the Apex Court was fine with it, adding that the lawyers should feel free to appear online.
As per the Union Health Ministry, India clocked in 4,435 new Covid-19 infections on Wednesday, the highest single-day jump in more than five months, taking the total case tally to more than four crore (4,47,33,719). The death toll increased to 5,30,916 with 15 fresh deaths reported in the last 24 hours, it added.