Calcutta High Court has issued notification in the wake of COVID-19

Calcutta High Court has issued notification in the wake of COVID-19, declaring limited functioning of High Court and Courts subordinate to it.

The court will have limited functions for urgent matters, including all courts in West Bengal will function with skeletal staff only, in the interest of public safety.

The Court directed that registry to identify the Departments which are essentially required to man the aforesaid Court and those department should be run by skeletal staff on a rotation basis, and should also ensure transportation of Hon’ble Judges to and from the High Court if any requisition is made in that behalf, civil administration shall make available facilities for transporting Judicial Officers and staff of the District/Sub-Division Courts, when necessary.

The following benches will be functional from Monday, 23^rd March 2020:

• Hon’ble Chief Justice Thottathil B.Radhakrishnan and Hon’ble Justice Arijit Banerjee: Will sit together and take Public Interest Litigation and Writ Appeals.
• Hon’ble Justice Dipankar Datta and Hon’ble Justice Joymalya Bagchi: Will sit together and take all criminal matters and matters arising out of orders of all Tribunals constituted under Articles 323A and 323B of Constitution.
• Hon’ble Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Hon’ble Justice I.P.Mukerji: Will sit together and take all Civil Appeals in the Appellate Side and also All Original Side Appeals.
• Hon’ble Justice Dipankar Datta: Will sit singly, after the Division Bench, and take all Appellate Side Writ Matters.
• Hon’ble Justice Sanjib Banerjee: Will sit singly, after the Division Bench, and take civil matters in the Appellate Side.
• Hon’ble Justice I.P.Mukerji: Will sit singly, after the Division Bench, and take all Original Side single Bench including Writ matters.
• Hon’ble Justice Joymalya Bagchi: Will sit singly, after the Division Bench, and take all criminal matters required to be taken up by a Single Bench.

According to the notification, only the District Judges, Additional District Judges, the Chief Judicial Magistrates, Additional Chief Judicial Magistrates and Judicial Magistrates or equivalent, as may be directed by the District Judge will be available for extremely urgent matters with such staff as may be specially identified by the District Judge for the Sadar and for the SubDivision as well and registrar should also select some pick up points wherefrom, the staff attending the duty to man the Court, can be picked up and dropped.

-India Legal Bureau