Delhi High Court announces extension on suspension of functioning till June 14

Delhi High Court on Friday decided to extend the suspension of its functioning along with that of its subordinate courts till June 14 in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. Previously, the committee concerned had suspended the functioning of the court till May 31.

The Administrative and General Supervision Committee of the Delhi High Court, headed by Chief Justice DN Patel, decided that the restriction would be in place till June 14 and the urgent matters would continue to be heard by video conferencing.

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"The Administrative and General Supervision Committee of this court, while considering a further extension of suspended functioning of this court and taking note of the prevalent situation, it has been ordered that the functioning of the High Court of Delhi shall continue to remain suspended till June 14, 2020," a Delhi High Court circular said on Friday.

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The circular further added, "as per earlier directions, all the Benches shall take up urgent matters through video conferencing as per Roster notified on 20.05.2020 and the notes contained therein".

The Delhi HC order also mentioned that all the cases listed in the court, including before the registrars and joint registrars, from June 1 to June 12 have been adjourned to corresponding dates between July 3 to August 5 respectively. The matters listed in the district courts during this period will also be adjourned and the information will be uploaded on their website, the order read. Earlier, fewer benches were set up to hear urgent matters through video conferencing.

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To ensure more urgent matters are taken up, it was decided that from May 22, all the judges of the high court would sit every day to take up important cases via video conferencing. The step was taken after the Delhi HC and the lower courts together took up 20,726 urgent matters during the COVID-19 related lockdown from March 24 to May 19.

There are presently seven division benches and 19 single-judge benches at the Delhi HC. The same committee had earlier too extended the suspension of functioning of the courts in the wake of the prevalent situation.

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(With agency inputs)