The Supreme Court on Wednesday intimated that it has conducted hearing of more than 15,000 cases since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, by means of Video Conferencing and disposed of approximately 4300 cases.

The Supreme Court of India did not stop functioning throughout this entire period though some preferences were accorded to urgent issues. The Registry was not shut down even for a day from March 16, 2020 till date.

As per the press note issued by the Apex Court, 1,021 Benches of the Court heard a total of 15,596 matters from March 23, 2020 till date. These include 10,754 main matters, 3,419 connected matters and 1,423 matters listed before the Registrar Court.

Of these, the Supreme Court has successfully disposed of approximately 4,300 matters. The press note compares these figures alongside disposal rates in other jurisdictions like the UK (which decided 29 Case between March 18 and August 17); the US (which decided 44 Case between March 20 and August 17); Canada (which decided 14 Case between March 27 and August 17), etc.

Statistics released by the Supreme Court includes:

1.     Total No. of Advocates appeared through Video/Tele-Conferencing- 50,475 approximately

2.     Total Number of Video Conference footfall of Advocates, Litigants & Media persons- 65,000 approximately

3.     Cases file through e-filing- 2,930

4.     Cases filed via physical counters- 3,194

The press note highlights that the SC Registry has not been shut down even for a single day from March 16, 2020 till date. This was made possible despite around a hundred and quarter members of the Registry staff and their immediate family testing Covid-19 positive, due to the aggressive measures taken by the Court to check the spread of infection.

Other steps taken by the Supreme Court to ensure access to justice and adhere to the open court concept include:

To facilitate the lawyers and litigants, who may face difficulty in joining the video Conferencing;

1.     12 facilitation rooms have been created. Of these, 5 facilitation rooms are functional from Additional Building Complex of the SC and 7 VC facilitation rooms are functional, one each from the District Court Complex of Delhi.

2.     Technical VC assistance is provided in these VC facilitation rooms.

3.     7 Dedicated help lines have been established covering all aspects of assistance to advocates and litigants.

To facilitate the media to witness and report the proceedings, dedicated media rooms have been established and approximately 30 media persons may see the proceedings live.