SC judges to function from home, over 50% staff test Covid positive

New Delhi: India's spiralling Covid-19 crisis has hit the Supreme Court in a big way with up to 50 per cent of its staff testing positive for the disease.

Facing a grim scenario, the Supreme Court on Monday decided that all benches will assemble through video links and the hearings will now be held via video conferencing from home.

"The entire court premise, including courtrooms, is now being sanitised. The various benches will now sit an hour later than their scheduled time," NDTV quoted the sources as saying.

Before this, many benches led by CJI S A Bobde and Justices N V Ramana, R F Nariman, U U Lalit, A M Khanwilkar, Ashok Bhushan, L N Rao, S A Nazir, Navin Sinha were assembling on a bench in the courtrooms.

"Most of my staff and law clerks have tested positive," one judge told NDTV. Some judges had contracted Covid earlier but recovered subsequently.

India is experiencing a ferocious new wave of pandemic with around 10 lakh new cases being reported over the past week. On Sunday alone, the country added 1,52,879 new infections. It currently leads the world in the daily average number of new infections reported in more than two weeks, accounting for one in every six infections reported globally each day.

The number of deaths has also surged, with the health ministry reporting 839 fatalities on Sunday -- the highest in over five months -- taking the total to 1,69,275.