SC’s annual vacations cancelled

Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain has cancelled the next two scheduled annual vacations of the Supreme Court.

The SC administration issued a notification to this effect last night.

Both the Appellate and High Court Divisions of the Supreme Court were scheduled to remain on vacation from September 1 to October 5 and from December 20 to 31.

The chief justice cancelled the vacations as per the decision taken in a full court meeting of the judges of the Appellate and High Court Divisions on August 6.

Most of the judges, who joined the virtual full court meeting through video conferencing, have proposed to curtail the next vacation of the court to recover the gaps caused due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, meeting sources said.

Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain at the same meeting decided to run both regular and virtual proceedings of the High Court from August 12 in the interest of lawyers and litigants.

The lawyers, who prefer the physical court, will move cases before the physical HC benches, while others will move cases before virtual HC benches.

Meeting sources said more than 40 HC judges, out of 92, expressed views for conducting court functions in a physical presence strictly following health guidelines while the remaining judges opined for continuing virtual proceedings of the HC in order to contain the spread of coronavirus.