Supreme Court may scrap 45-day summer vacation

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday indicated that it was ready to scrap the 45-day-long summer vacation, which is scheduled to start from May 17, and continue to work through the vacation using video-conferencing facilities to make up for lost time due to the lockdown caused by Covid-19.

A bench headed by Justice L N Rao, who was part of the judges’ committee tasked to suggest ways and means for the SC to function during and after the lockdown, in the course of hearing of a case informed solicitor general Tushar Mehta, “From next week onwards, we (the judges) will be sitting in courtrooms in the SC. Lawyers can argue from their chambers.” The bench was operating from courtroom No.4 on Tuesday. Other members of the committee were Justices R F Nariman, U U Lalit, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Rao.

Meanwhile, the judges’ committee has submitted a report to CJI S A Bobde suggesting several alternatives — scrapping of the vacation altogether,curtailing the seven-week summer vacation to just two weeks, and allowing the vacation to be shifted to some other time.