The Supreme Court has decided to limit its functioning due to the novel coronavirus pandemic and hold hearing of only six out of 15 benches on Monday.
The six benches will take up for hearing only urgent matters and no persons, except lawyers concerned, will be allowed inside its courtrooms.
According to the circular issued by the apex court on Friday, the six benches will comprise of Justices Arun Mishra and M R Shah, Justices
U U Lalit and Vineet Saran, Justices A M Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari, Justices D Y Chandrachud and Hemant Gupta, Justices L Nageswara Rao and S Ravindra Bhatt, Justices S K Kaul and Sanjiv Khanna.
On Monday and Friday of every week, the apex court usually functions with 15 benches and take up mostly miscellaneous matters.
Earlier in the day, a notification issued by the apex court said it had been decided that from Monday, it would take up for hearing only urgent matters.
It said that instead of the courts already notified for Monday, only six benches would be taking up urgent matters and no constitution bench or special bench matters would be taken up.
The circular said a revised list of matters to be taken up by these benches would be issued and the benches for next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday would be notified later.
The apex court has been mulling over the issue in its meetings held at the residence of Chief Justice of India S A Bobde on Thursday and Friday, as it took note of the Centre’s March 5 advisory cautioning against mass gatherings and the World Health Organization declaring COVID-19 a ‘pandemic’.
The apex court’s notification, issued by its secretary general Sanjeev S Kalgaonkar, said it had been decided that its functioning would be restricted to urgent matters.