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Journalism of Courage
The Bombay High Court and its benches at Nagpur, Aurangabad and Goa will function for only two hours — noon to 2 pm — a day and take up only urgent matters from March 17 until further orders in view of the novel coronavirus outbreak. A circular issued by acting Chief Justice Bhushan P Dharmadhikari through registrar general S B Agrawal on Monday also directed its registry to reduce staff strength by half.
District, sessions and other subordinate courts too have been told to reduce staff strength and ensure work time does not exceed three hours a day. Overall office hours should not be more than four hours a day, the circular said.
The Bombay High Court has more than 3,000 employees, while hundreds of litigants and lawyers visit its premises each day.
As per the circular, subordinate courts across the state have been directed to take up only urgent matters such as bail applications, pre-arrest bail pleas, applications for urgent orders of for injunctions, remand orders among others.
On March 14, the Bombay High Court had issued a notification and restricted its functioning to urgent matters. The circular issued Monday stated that the previous directions will remain in force.
Justice Dharmadhikari has also exempted high court staff across Mumbai, Nagpur and Aurangabad from marking their attendance on biometric system and directed them to sign regular muster for attendance from March 16.
On Monday, security was also beefed up at the High Court premises and entry was restricted to litigants. High Court staff and advocates were allowed to enter the premises only after showing their identity cards. Most of the benches in the High Court discharged their daily work after functioning for two to three hours in pre-lunch session.
At the Mumbai city civil and sessions court, many litigants and family members of undertrials were denied entry to control the crowd on the premises. Courts also gave adjournments without insisting on appearances by parties, as per an earlier circular issued by the High Court. Very few undertrial prisoners were brought before the court, while some were also produced through video-conferencing.
The Bombay High Court on Tuesday will hear a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking the establishment of an epidemic control board, barring entry of visitors in prisons, updating detection mechanism at airports as well as a host of other preventive measures in the wake of the spread of COVID-19 cases.
The PIL was filed by educationist and social worker Sagar Shivajirao Jondhale last Friday. The matter will be heard by the division bench of Acting Chief Justice Bhushan P Dharmadhikari and Justice Nitin R Borkar on Tuesday.
On Monday, government pleader Priyabhushan P Kakade submitted that the state has taken most of the preventive measures sought in the plea, including closing down schools, colleges and theatres and allowing work from home facilities to private companies.
On Monday evening, the government asked all universities and institutions to postpone all examinations till March 31 and asked teachers and academic staff to work from home till March 25. Schools in rural areas have also been shut down.
The plea filed through advocate Milind Deshmukh also seeks directions from the court to the state government to amend the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, to make it more effective to prevent the outbreak of dangerous diseases. It sought establishment of the Epidemic Diseases Control Board and immediate steps for prevention and spread of diseases in future.
While seeking postponement of municipal elections and closing of schools in rural areas, Jondhale also sought that government staff be provided with necessary mask and gloves. Moreover, it was sought that prisons should not allow any visitors.
The HC will also hear on Tuesday a plea filed by advocate Sagar Suryawanshi, seeking directions to the central government that the travel advisory for producing COVID-19 negative certificate from designated laboratory and mandatory quarantine period of 14 days upon arrival shall be applied to each and every person desiring to travel from coronavirus-affected countries to India.
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