Plea before Supreme Court to declare access to virtual hearing as fundamental right, Justice DY Chandrachud to lead bench
Plea before Supreme Court to declare access to virtual hearing as fundamental right, Justice DY Chandrachud to lead bench
Justice DY Chandrachud is all set to hear the plea before the Supreme Court to declare access to virtual hearing as a fundamental right. Justice Chandrachud is the Chairman of the e-courts project of the Supreme Court.
The matter is to be placed before a bench led by Justice DY Chandrachud after the matter was mentioned by advocate Siddharth R Gupta before a bench of Chief Justice of India NV Ramana and Justices Krishna Murari and Hima Kohli.
There are at least two petitions seeking virtual hearing as a matter of right.
The first plea is filed by All India Jurists Association, a body of more than 5,000 lawyers across the country, and journalist Sparsh Upadhyay of Livelaw has sought a declaration that right to participate in court proceedings through virtual courts via video conference is a fundamental right under Article 19(1)(a) and (g) of the Constitution.
The second plea filed through advocate Sriram Parakkat has stated that virtual courts and conducting cases through video conference by resorting to use of information, communication and technology is a fundamental right available to every lawyer under Article 19(1)(a) and (g) of the Constitution of India.
The petitioner also submitted that such access cannot be defeated or dispensed on procedural grounds of lack of technology or infrastructure or inconvenience of the courts to handle such matters.
Interestingly, the petitioner-association has also sought impleadment of the E-Committee of the Supreme Court as one of the parties to the case.
Another plea filed by National Federation of Societies for Fast Justice through advocate Mrigank Prabhakar has also sought a directive to the High Courts to refrain from discontinuing with the option of video conference and virtual court hearings without the permission of the Supreme Court's e-committee.
