Plea Before Supreme Court seeks direction to continue hearings in hybrid mode in Madhya Pradesh High Court

A lawyer has moved a plea before the Supreme Court seeking directions to the Centre and others to continue the virtual hearing through the hybrid system in the High Court of Madhya Pradesh.

The plea filed by Advocate Varun Thakur through Advocate Varinder Kumar Sharma stated, “Petitioner filed 48 cases online before the Respondent No.2 (High Court of Madhya Pradesh) from July 2020 to October 2021 and also attended the hearings online. Resulting in 31 cases being disposed of”.

The case of the petitioner is that thereafter suddenly, the Madhya Pradesh High Court started allowing virtual hearings only for people who are above 60 years. So, the petitioner handed over the remaining cases to a local counsel, who appeared before the court on a day-to-day basis, but there was “no progress” in the pending cases.

During the pendency of the present matter, the plea stated, that the Chairman of the State Bar Council of Madhya Pradesh vide letter dated March 23, 2023, asked the entire lawyer community in the State to abstain from work w.e.f. March 23, 2023. The Chairman of the State Bar Council had stated that unless the scheme relating to the disposal of 25 identified cases in every quarter is not withdrawn by March 22, 2023, the members of the Bar would protest the issue seriously.

On March 24, 2023, the high court issued a detailed order in the Suo Moto case that included the initiation of contempt of court proceedings against any lawyer who failed to appear in the matter or who prevented any other lawyer from attending court proceedings. The bench of Chief Justice Ravi Malimath and Justice Vishal Mishra had come down heavily on the culture of strikes by lawyers. Court had said that the litigants are the ones who suffer due to such strikes and the court cannot be a mute spectator to such instances.

Taking a stern view, the division bench had directed all the advocates throughout the State to attend to their court work and warned that "if any lawyer deliberately avoids attending the court, it shall be presumed that there is disobedience of the present order and he will be faced with serious consequences including initiation of proceedings for contempt of court under the Contempt of Courts Act".

The present plea stated that due to the aforementioned directive, the petitioner’s local counsel attempted to appear before the high court, however, they were unable to do so due to the petitioner's inability to participate in the hearing virtually, despite the fact that all necessary infrastructure was available and in good working condition for only those advocates who were over 60 years old.

Furthermore, the plea stated that “in Madhya Pradesh, more than 6000 advocates facing contempt proceeding like the present petitioner/applicant, resulting 6000 cases are increased unnecessarily at the cost of public exchequer and registry of the High Courts are expending huge time and money (including postal expenses, notice preparation, etc.) in the above said 6000 cases”.

The plea also stated that if the Apex Court directs Madhya Pradesh to allow virtual hearings, then most of the problems will be resolved easily. “It is just and proper to pass the interim direction for continue to the virtual hearing system in High Court of Madhya Pradesh so that advocate and litigants cannot be suffered and approached the Hon'ble Court easily”, the plea further stated.

Moreover, the petitioner sought directions to the High Court of Madhya Pradesh to drop the contempt proceedings which were initiated in the background of the order dated March 23, 2023.

Case Title: Varun Thakur v. Union of India & Ors.