Karnataka HC waives rule to speed up cases

BENGALURU: In a move that could help over 7,000 litigants and advocates, the Karnataka High Court on Monday waived office objections raised by the Registry before posting cases for hearing. A division bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Ashok S Kinagi passed an order waiving office objections for the time being as around 7,000 cases are yet to be posted before the bench as office objections that have not been rectified.

The bench noted that the functioning of the court improved in June-July after Covid-measures such as e-filing of cases and later physical filing were permitted. However, as cases piled up, the bench noted that restoring normal functioning of the court in the near future would be difficult.

Except for essential objections including non-payment or insufficient payment of court fee, bar of limitation, maintainability of proceedings, failure to enclose order /circular /notification, failure to submit second set of petitions before a division bench, not furnishing a petition copy to the government advocate and getting endorsement from the office state public prosecutor in filing of criminal petitions, other objections have been waived.

Physical hearing of cases already permitted: HC
High Court Registrar Rajendra Badamikar on Monday released the details of cases filed – through both e-filing and physical format, and heard and disposed – from August 1 to 28, 2020, to clarify the misunderstanding of some members of the Bar that there is no provision for physical hearing of cases in district and trial courts. The Registrar said the SOPs notified from time to time for district judiciary clearly disclose that physical hearing is permitted in all district and trial courts as far as oral submissions are concerned. “Only in case of recording of evidence, video conference is mandatory,” he said. 

HC pulls up advocate for unauthorised entry into video-conference
The High Court on Monday took serious exception to the conduct of an advocate for joining a video conference hearing unauthorisedly. When a division bench was about to rise after concluding hearing matters, an advocate, through video conference, mentioned a matter to be taken up for hearing, citing urgency. She disclosed that she took the online link from another advocate and joined the video conference. The bench then told the advocate that she had taken the link unauthorisedly. “If members of the Bar behave like this, we can’t help it,” it orally observed. Meanwhile, the advocate disclosed the name of the person from whom she had taken the link and apologised.

HC declines to restrain state from inducting 3 MLCs in BSY cabinet
The HC on Monday declined to restrain the state government and the Governor from accommodating three MLCs — R Shankar, A H Vishwanath and M T B Nagaraj — into the cabinet. In a PIL, A S Harish, member of the governing council of Advocates’ Association of Bangalore, contended that the state government and governor should not accommodate the MLCs unless they fulfil the conditions laid down by the Supreme Court. A division bench ordered notice to the state, including the chief minister, Governor and other respondents, observing that the constitutional functionaries will take note of the apex court order.