District/Trial Court To Reopen In A Phased Manner In Karnataka [Read SOP]

As per the revised SOP, from September 28, Fifty-five taluka Courts, as mentioned in the SOP, will reopen. All Courts in thirteen districts viz., Davanagere, Haveri, Chitradurga, Chikkaballapura, Raichur, Bidar, Ramanagara, Udupi, Gadag, KodaguMadikeri, Koppal, Chamarajanagar and Yadgir, will reopen with effect from October 5, 2020. While, all Courts in the remaining districts will be reopened with effect from October 12, 2020.

Special Arrangement inside courtrooms and court complexes.

*The courtrooms in all the courts in the state will be modified for the purpose of recording of evidence by covering the witness box and the accused dock.

*It will be open for the Courts to physically record evidence of a maximum of five witnesses in the morning session on every working day. Every Court shall list Fifteen Cases each, in the morning session and in the afternoon session. While fixing the cases, priority shall be given to hearing of interlocutory applications, hearing of final oral arguments and recording of evidence in part-heard civil and criminal cases.

*The entry of litigants in the Court complexes will continue to remain prohibited.

*However, witnesses and the accused (on bail) will be allowed entry into the court complexes upon production of a negative report of rapid antigen test of the same date, witness summons or entry pass.

*At no point of time, the persons present in the Court Hall including Advocates and the Court staff shall exceed TWENTY (20) in number. If at any time more than 20 persons are present in any Court, the functioning of the Court will be stopped by the Judicial Officer. As stated earlier, at the time of recording of evidence, except for the witnesses, parties (when expressly permitted), and their respective Advocate/s, no one shall be allowed to sit in the Court halls.

*Parking of Advocates' vehicles will be allowed at the designated places in the Court complexes. Entry will be allowed only to self-driven vehicles of the advocates on production of photo-identity passes, which will be issued by the court administration on the basis of the applications received through the recognized Bar Associations.

*Premises of all Bar Associations will remain open on all court working days between 10.30 am and 4.00 pm. However, before opening the premises, half of the chairs inside the premises shall be removed.

*For the time being, entry of photocopy machine operators, notaries and typists will not be permitted. For the time being, the canteens in the Court premises will not be permitted to be opened.

The notification issued by the Registrar General, Rajendra Badamikar, states that "In case of any emergent situation, the Chief Justice will take decisions regarding permitting closure of courts for sanitization and for suspension of physical hearings. Notwithstanding this SOP, the earlier Notification dated August 5, 2020, declaring 'closure' of all the Courts only for the purposes of Section 4 of Limitation Act, 1963 till September 30, 2020, shall continue to operate."

Click Here To Download SOP

[Read SOP]