Sarvesh Mathur vs The Registrar General, High Court of Punjab and Haryana
Background
This is a follow-up order in an ongoing public interest matter about the availability of video-conferencing and hybrid hearing facilities in India's High Courts and tribunals. The Supreme Court had earlier directed all High Courts, the NCLAT, NCDRC and NGT to file affidavits on how many hybrid/video hearings had been conducted and whether any courts were refusing such facilities. Most High Courts responded, revealing wide inconsistency: some courts held hybrid hearings routinely while others conducted as few as three virtual hearings in three months, and several lacked WiFi, online filing, or a uniform procedure for requesting virtual access.
Decision Breakdown
The Court found the overall picture "abysmal," noting arbitrary restrictions such as requiring advance written applications for video access or limiting hybrid hearings to lawyers above 65 years of age, which unfairly disadvantaged younger advocates without any real justification. It appointed two amici curiae to compile all the High Courts' data into a single chart and directed a slate of concrete measures: no High Court may deny video/hybrid access after two weeks from the order, State Governments must fund the needed infrastructure, courts must provide free WiFi within their premises, hearing links must appear in the daily cause list without prior applications, age or other arbitrary eligibility criteria are barred, every High Court must adopt a uniform Standard Operating Procedure (with a Delhi High Court judge and the amici asked to draft a model SOP), and tribunals such as NCLAT, NCLT, ITAT and CESTAT must have hybrid hearings running by 15 November 2023, with government funding coordinated at the ministerial level.
Lesson Learnt
Access to courts increasingly means access through technology, and the Supreme Court has made clear that litigants and lawyers cannot be arbitrarily denied video-conferencing or hybrid hearing facilities. Courts across the country are now under binding directions to provide equal, unrestricted digital access to justice.