Ambika Bhardwaj
Published On: January 09, 2022 at 19:10 IST
The Supreme Court is under Covid red alert after the positivity rate among Judges surpassed 12% on Saturday, and two more Judges tested positive, taking the total number of COVID positive Judges to four. Also more than 150 staff members have been quarantined.
A Judge with mild fever interacted with other Judges at Justice R S Reddy’s farewell high tea party on January 4 is presumed to infect his bench colleague and two other judges. As a result, out of an overall workforce of 32 Judges, including the CJI, have come back positive.
On Thursday, Chief Justice of India NV Ramana convened a meeting with four other senior Judges to discuss the pandemic condition.
“Regrettably, the issue has resurfaced, and that we are also aware of this. We may not be able to hear cases in physical mode for another four to six weeks, it appears.“, according to the CJI.
The Supreme Court then shifted to virtual proceedings for two weeks as the country saw a sudden increase in number of COVID positive patients .
As per the notification issued by the administration, the benches have been told to sit at the residence offices beginning from January 7.
Due to the pandemic, the Supreme Court has been listening to the cases via video-conferencing since March 2020. It had previously decided to switch back to physical proceedings after more than a year in October after the number of Covid cases in India had decreased.