The Bar Council of India has expressed strong reservations about the practice of court hearings via video conferencing and demanded that it be put an end to as soon as the lockdown due to COVID19 comes to an end.
In a letter to the Chief Justice of India S A Bobde, the Bar Council Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra said, “If such practice is encouraged and allowed to continue, there is not an iota of doubt that more than 95% of the advocates of the country will become brief less and work less and the practice of law will be confined to a limited group of lawyers and justice delivery would be badly affected.”
Technology and video conference hearings may have come to the aid of the system in times such as these but extending this practice beyond the lockdown would be “impractical”, Mishra said.
Letter states, it appears that while speaking, stating or planning something, some senior advocates, former judges seem to be oblivious or they are closing their eyes to ground realities. They are making Utopian plans as if they have to be implemented and executed for a fully developed nation like UK, USA or some country other than India.
We should not forget that large strata of Indian society have no drinking water and two meals a day whereas there are others who fly on private jets. Parents of students may be labourers or from lower middle class who somehow manage to pay college fee but may not have access to computers or technology, said Mishra.
He said that people sitting on elevated chairs have forgotten lack of resources in India. There is a gap between resources and technologies available in metro cities and other urban and rural areas. Less educated and less fortunate people seek help of Advocates who maybe good at arguing but due to economic position prevalent at the time when they studied and in courts where they practice, there may still be typewriters in use and they may be unaware of modern technology, scanning, e filing, videoconferencing.
90% of Advocates and Judges across country are unaware about technology who could learn it after training. At same time, letter appreciates idea of Courts in conducting ‘virtual hearings’ for extraordinary urgent matters.
But, in this lockdown, some Advocates and Judges have started talking about sudden change in situation overnight and planning to do judicial work through video conferencing even after lockdown is over.
Mr. Mishra expressed his fear that if this continues, building of Supreme Court or High Courts or lower courts may not even be required. There would be no need of Parliament, Assemblies, school, college or auditorium.
Video conferencing can never substitute open court hearings in presence of parties, Advocates and media persons. If lockdown continues, we shall have to find out safe, adequate and secured measures for working of Courts so that on one hand social distancing can be maintained and on other hand, work of Courts would not suffer and citizens galore would stand to get relief in the form of legal justice even in such trying times.
-India Legal Bureau