[COVID-19] Kerala High Court extends life of interim orders passed by all courts/tribunals in State till Feb 21

The Kerala High Court has extended the life of all interim orders passed by all courts and tribunals falling under the supervisory jurisdiction of the High Court till February 21, 2022..In this regard, a Full Bench of Chief Justice S Manikumar, Justice Shaji P Chaly and A Muhammed Mustaque revived an earlier order passed by the Court in May 2021 which had issued directions for the extension of interim orders during the second wave of the pandemic..The Court noted that on January 10, the Supreme Court relaxed the limitation period to file cases under all general and special laws across the country till February 28, 2022 in view of the spike in COVID-19 cases and its impact on public health and adversities faced by the litigants and lawyers. The High Court also took into account the fact that the Test Positivity Rate in Kerala as on January 17 is 33.06%. "Cases of Covid-19 are alarmingly increasing. Outbreak of the surge, has certainly put the litigants, lawyers and even the functioning of the court in difficult stage", the order said..Today, Advocate General K Gopalakrishna Kurup, Assistant Solicitor General of India S Manu and advocate Rajesh Vijayan, president of the Kerala High Court Advocates’ Association, unanimously submitted that the detailed order passed by the Full Bench of the Court on May 19, 20201, may be revived subject to certain modifications as ordered on subsequent dates..Therefore, the High Court decided to revive the earlier orders passed by it in exercise of the powers conferred under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India and Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).The earlier orders are summarised below :All the interim orders passed by all the Courts/Tribunals upon which High Court exercises supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 of Constitution of India, which are due to expire during the lockdown period, are extended;If any application is filed for extending/vacating an interim order and pending for orders in this Court, the interim orders will have to be extended, accordingly all orders are extended;In all recovery matters, such as electricity, water, Abkari and other matters, Council of Ministers, Government of Kerala has already taken a decision that, no recovery proceedings would be initiated or recovery proceedings already initiated, would not be proceeded further. Additional Advocate General submitted that Government would maintain the position;Insofar as recovery proceedings by Government of India and Public Sector Undertakings owned or controlled by the Government of India, Taking note of the submission of the Government of India and the order of the Supreme Court dated 7.5.2021, which revived the orders passed during the first lockdown, that a proper mechanism be evolved, we also deem it fit to state that until such time, we hope that no action would be taken;Insofar as Criminal matters are concerned, orders of bail or anticipatory bail, restricted for a limited period, which may expire during the lockdown period, stand extended as hereafter;Sessions Judges in the State are hereby authorised to consider bail applications submitted through e-mail and to dispose of such applications through video-conferencing, after hearing the Advocate concerned as well as the Public Prosecutor;We direct the appropriate statutory authorities/police to consider any application or declaration or information, as the case may be, received from the lawyers, physically or through electronic mode, for their movement and also the movement of clerks and other required staffs, appropriate decision, in accordance with law, shall be taken, without any delay, so as to enable the movement;With respect to the matters arising out of the proceedings under Sec.138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, interim orders, if any, issued already need not be enforced..These orders, subject to any modifications that were made later have been revived and now extend upto February 21, 2022. The matter will be taken up again on February 18, 2022..[Read Order]