The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), the apex body of lawyers in the country, on Saturday urged Chief Justice of India S.A. Bobde to cancel the nearly two-month-long summer holidays to compensate for the loss of working days on account of the Covid crisis.

A resolution was passed at the executive meeting of the SCBA, headed by the president and senior advocate Dushyant Dave.

The summer vacations are scheduled to start from May 16 and continue till July 5, during which only two or three vacation benches sit for hearings.

“As a first step, the SCBA resolves that all lawyers practising in the Supreme Court will give up the summer vacation which is scheduled from May 16, 2020, till July 5, 2020, and make themselves available for work during that period in order to make good the loss of court working days between March 15 and April 30, 2020, or any additional days that may be lost thereafter.

“Accordingly, the EC resolves to appeal to the Hon’ble the Chief Justice of India… to declare cancellation of summer vacation as per existing calendar and instead treat the entire period covered under the same as working of the… Supreme Court of India in the larger interest of the litigants and interest of justice and request them to declare the same at the earliest,” the resolution said.

According to Dave, the association is deeply concerned about the distress and hardship caused to litigants throughout the country on account of restricted functioning of the courts, including the Supreme Court of India, since March 15.

The lockdown necessitated very limited hearing of exceptionally urgent matters through video-conferencing and available virtual platforms.

The SCBA has said it appreciates and fully supports the need for the restrictions, which were unavoidable in the unprecedented situation.

However, now that the first phase of lockdown is drawing to an end on April 14 and there is a strong possibility of similar or varying restrictions continuing thereafter, the SCBA believes that it is time for the Chief Justice of India and the other judges of the Supreme Court to take further proactive measures in order to mitigate the suffering and distress of the litigating public, and to put in place fresh measures for gradually restoring the full functioning of the Supreme Court.

The SCBA resolved that until the normal operations of open courts can resume, the temporary video-conferencing facilities should be immediately improved by adopting live-streaming of court proceedings.

The existing video conferencing platform should be replaced by a modern and efficient multi-user platform or the interactive services being used by the council of ministers and officials of the government, the SCBA said.

“It is only if all contesting lawyers and litigants can have simultaneous access to the video-conference proceedings that it can become an effective system for conducting full-fledged court proceedings on a par with those which our judicial system requires should normally be conducted in open courtrooms,” the SCBA said against the backdrop of frequent glitches witnessed during the video-conference hearings during the lockdown period.