Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana is learnt to have turned down a plea from some senior lawyers against making physical hearings mandatory but agreed to allow the hybrid option in exceptional cases if the bench concerned so decided.

In the hybrid mode, lawyers have the option of appearing either physically or over video.

The CJI is understood to have indicated at a meeting with several Bar members,

including attorney-general K.K. Venugopal and solicitor-general Tushar Mehta, that physical hearings, which had been suspended since March last year because of the pandemic, would be restored in full.

The resumption is expected to be completed gradually after the Diwali vacation, which ends on November 6.

At the meeting on Thursday evening, the CJI apparently refused a plea from senior lawyers Kapil Sibal, Mukul Rohatgi, Abhishek Manu Singhvi and others to reconsider the decision to resume physical hearings on all non-miscellaneous days (Wednesdays and Thursdays) from October 21.

Old matters or partially heard matters are taken up during the non-miscellaneous days. Mondays and Fridays are treated as miscellaneous days when only fresh cases are taken up for hearing. Spillovers from Mondays as well as old matters are heard on Tuesdays.

The senior lawyers’ alternative plea that hearings be held in the hybrid mode has been partly accepted. The discretion has now been conferred on the respective benches to consider requests for virtual or hybrid hearings on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

The CJI is understood to have consulted some of his senior colleagues, who agreed that physical hearings ought to be restored at the earliest in line with the wishes of the majority of lawyers.

The decision has the support of Supreme Court Bar Association president Vikas Singh and Bar Council of India chairperson Mannan Kumar Mishra.

The Bar had been vertically split on the resumption of physical hearings. While several prominent lawyers and law firms are keen on continuing with the virtual mode, many others want physical hearings restored, mainly because many lawyers have been financially crippled by the pandemic.

Under the system of virtual hearings, the most sought after lawyers were able to appear in different courts of the country on the same day.