The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has decided to hold only physical hearings from August 1. This decision, which will apply to cases before the Principal Bench in Delhi, has been arrived at after undertaking a review of the Covid-19 pandemic situation and taking note of the declining positivity rate in the country.
NCLAT has now modified its Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)/revised SOP to this effect, sources said.
It has now come up with mandatory norms including wearing of mask at all times; undergoing thermal scanning at the designated entry points and random checking inside the court blocks; sanitising the hands before/at the time of entry, and strict adherence to social distancing within the NCLAT premises.
It may be recalled that soon after the breakout of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, the NCLAT had decided that all urgent cases will be heard through video conferencing mode from June 1, 2020.
SOP for court rooms
As per the latest SOP, while the physical hearing will be allowed, the entry into court rooms for the purpose of attending such hearings would stand restricted to (i) only one advocate per party whose case is listed for hearing that day and whose Vakalatnama is on record or who has been duly authorised by such advocate to appear; (ii) senior counsel engaged by any such advocate, and (iii) registered clerk only for the purpose of delivering heavy and bulky case files of such advocates at the designated court room.