In a unanimous decision by a Full Bench presided over by the Chief Justice, the Delhi High Court had resolved that the High Court as well as all the subordinate courts will remain open in the month of June 2020.
The decision to suspend the summer break was taken in light of the inconvenience caused to the litigants due to the restrictive functioning of the Court amid COVID-19 lockdown. The Court has been hearing only hearing urgent matters amid outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. To make up for the loss of court working hours due to COVID-19 lockdown, the Full Court passed the resolution, the relevant portion of which reads:
“Since during the period of suspension of work, the hearing is limited to the matters of extremely urgent nature or urgent nature, there is negligible fresh filing of cases, lesser disposal and corresponding escalation in arrears, resulting in extreme hardship to litigants.
In view of the severe hardship faced by the litigants due to the prevailing pandemic of COVID-19 that has impaired the functioning of the courts, it has been unanimously resolved by the Full Court that to make up for the loss of court working hours and to ensure restoration of normalcy in the functioning of the courts at the earliest, in modification of the resolution of the Full Court dated 16.09.2019, declaring the period of the Summer vacations for this Court and the Courts subordinate thereto in the month of June 2020, this Court and courts subordinate thereto shall continue functioning during the entire month of June i.e. from 01.06.2020 to 30.06.2020. It is hoped and expected that members of the Bar shall extend their full cooperation in making the functioning of the courts meaningful and purposeful during the month of June 2020.”