Kolkata, Jun 5 (PTI) Physical functioning of the Calcutta High Court will be partially resumed from June 11 with some benches which will sit on a staggered basis, it said in a notification on Friday.

The high court is at present hearing only very urgent matters through video conference.

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"Physical courts shall be resumed on a small scale and on an experimental basis from June 11," HC registrar general Rai Chattopadhyay said in the notification.

The physical court will sit for a day (June 11) in that week and thrice the next week.

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There will be less-than-normal number of benches and fewer people lawyers and staff will be allowed in the court arena, it said.

Matters mentioned on the ground of urgency and consented to by the parties will be included in the list for the next scheduled day for physical hearing, it said.

The notification said that since a number of urgent bail matters filed during the lockdown period are pending, video hearing of bail matters will also be taken up every working day.

In the week beginning June 8, the physical court sittings will be on Thursday (June 11) and in the next week, it will be on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the notification said.

"In course of the week beginning June 15, a decision may be taken as to the further course of action based on the experience of the experiment till then," the registrar general said.

Apart from the judges on the bench, three court staff will be present in every courtroom and not more than eight lawyers and litigants will be allowed entry into any courtroom at any given point of time.

The notification said that if it is observed that the distancing and health and hygiene advisories are not met, "the Chief Justice may be constrained to stop the physical functioning of court."

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)