Due to the spread of Covid-19 virus, everything in every nation has taken a hit especially the judicial system of India, which has a reputation of prolonging matters and handing out judgments after a decade or two. During the pandemic, all Courts, including National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, adopted to virtual hearing of matters. It was the first time that the courts had gone virtual in the history of the Judiciary. This meant the installation of a new system and trying it for the very first time. Since there were a few glitches initially, the court proceedings took time. Slowly the nation adopted virtual Judiciary. Though the courts were just a tap away, the Courts were only listing and hearing urgent matters which means the pandemic had indeed slowed down the judicial proceedings in this nation.
On 26th June 2020 via a notice, the Hon’ble Acting Chairperson of NCLAT ordered that all the work of the court including filing, virtual hearing, etc. would stand suspended till 3rd July 2020. This order comes as a precautionary measure to prevent the spread of Covid-19 as Delhi has outnumbered Mumbai in the most number of Covid-19 patients recently. Delhi has now become the city with the highest number of patients in the nation. Delhi has had over 34 thousand new patients in the past two weeks and the patient count has now reached over 73 thousand while the death toll is at almost 3 thousand. These numbers are worrisome and thus the NCLAT order is understandable. Earlier, on March 21st, 2020, NCLAT had announced that it would only be hearing urgent matters and had continued all interim orders until further notice.
The impact of Covid-19 on Indian Judiciary is immense and has bogged down the entire Judiciary. When the pandemic is over and the Judiciary stands back on its feet it will have an immense backlog and tremendous workload.