In order to strike a balance between access to justice and precautions to be taken owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court on Thursday ordered that the court may function regularly on a restricted scale till normalcy returns.
Chief Justice TBN Radhakrishnan, after considering the recommendations of the Covid Committee of the High Court, advised lawyers to file only extremely urgent matters till August 15.
In a notification, High Court Registrar General Rai Chattopadhyay said, "Hearings will be taken up only on thevideo platform except in case of indigent litigants appearing in person or lawyers not having access to the requisitetechnology or connectivity."
The CJ ordered that bail and anticipatory bail mattersmay be filed electronically, while all other filings will be in physical mode.
Apart from the Chief Justice's bench, two division benches will sit on every working day (except the lockdown days) from 11am to 1pm and take up concurrently all matters, except public interest litigations.
Five single benches will also sit from 2 pm to 3.30 pm on the same days as the division benches, the notification said.
It said that the Chief Justice has ordered that thoughthe court will function from the main building, lawyers, litigants, staff of lawyers and others should refrain fromvisiting it unless unavoidable.
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