All courts, including Telangana High Court, in the State will only hear urgent matters from Tuesday for three weeks in the backdrop of rising incidence of COVID-19 cases.
District and subordinate courts would hear only matters pertaining to bails, temporary injunctions and remand. Trials in all other cases are deferred for three weeks, the HC Registrar General said.
After holding a Full Court meeting on HC premises, chaired by Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan, it was announced that the High Court would work only on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and hear only urgent matters like bail petitions, stay applications, extension of stay, demolitions, custody of children.
Only one division bench and four single benches of the HC would work. Presently, the HC has two division benches and nine single benches. In all contempt of court cases, officials were granted exemption from personal appearances before the judges.
Women staff members of the HC need not attend to duties. The HC directed the government to arrange a thermal screening machine on HC premises to screen clients, lawyers and other visitors. The High Court suggested to lawyers to impress upon their respective clients not to come to the HC.
All stay orders issued earlier would be extended till further orders. No adverse orders are to be passed against lawyers not appearing before the courts in cases. Directions were given to make available sanitisers on HC premises. The lawyers were asked to clean their hands before entering the buildings and step into court halls only at the time of presenting their arguments.
Along with the HC judges, Advocate General B.S. Prasad, Bar Council chairman A. Narsimha Reddy and Telangana High Court Advocates Association president Surya Kiran Reddy attended the Full Court meeting. After the meeting, the bench of CJ and Justice A. Abhishek Reddy said it was inevitable to take all steps to check COVID-19 virus in the next three weeks to avoid an emergency like situation in the country.
Despite pro-active measures by the government and all stake-holders, coronavirus was spreading. If stringent measures are not initiated, the country would witness a situation being faced by Italy, the bench said.
