Caught smoking during virtual hearing, Gujarat High Court fines lawyer ₹10,000

The Gujarat High Court on Thursday pulled up a lawyer for smoking during a virtual hearing and slapped a fine of Rs 10,000 against him for the misconduct. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, courts have been hearing cases through video conference. During one such hearing, Justice AS Supehia noticed that the complainant's lawyer was sitting in a car and smoking.

The court immediately called out the lawyer, JV Ajmera for his "irresponsible conduct" and imposed a fine on him. An order released by the court condemned the actions of the advocate and directed him to deposit ₹ 10,000 with the court registry within a week.

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"This Court seriously deprecates such conduct of advocate J V Ajmera," it said in an order and asked him to deposit Rs 10,000 in the registry within a week. "It was not expected from an advocate to be smoking in the car during Court proceedings. Such behaviour of the advocate is required to be strictly condemned," the judge further said.

The Gujarat High Court has now prohibited advocates from attending proceedings from any vehicle or open ground. It directed the Bar Council of Gujarat and the Bar Association of High Court to instruct their members to attend online hearings from residences or offices.

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Over 11.93 lakh virtual hearings held amid lockdown

District and subordinate courts across the country held over 11.93 lakh hearings through videoconferencing between March 24 and July 15 during the lockdown period, the government informed Parliament last week. In a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha, Union Minister for Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad said video conference equipment has been provided to all court complexes, including taluk-level court complexes in rural areas, under the Phase II of the e-courts project for virtual hearings.

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To augment the videoconferencing infrastructure further, the e-committee of the Supreme Court has approved the provision of equipment to 14,443 courtrooms in these court complexes, he said. "As per information available, the number of hearings done by video conferencing from March 24, 2020, till July 15, 2020, by the district and subordinate courts across the country was 11,93,046," Prasad said.

He said the government is implementing the e-Courts Mission Mode Project for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) enablement for the district and subordinate courts across the country in association with the e-committee of the Supreme Court.

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(Inputs from agency, Image credits: PTI)