This analysis is based on a desk-based review of officially notified rules, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), practice directions, and daily cause lists available on the official websites across all Indian High Courts and major tribunals . Each forum was mapped across a common set of factors: date of rule/SOP (whether court/tribunal has come up with separate guidelines post mandate or reliance is placed on the pandemic rules), application requirement (whether advance applications within a fixed time window and reasons are mandatory), denial safeguards (whether reasons for denial are recorded or appealable), platform, link dissemination process, grievance redressal mechanism.

Observation

● Hybrid hearings remain discretionary rather than default, with most of the forums treating it as permission-based facility rather than a default mode of access.

● There is a wide divergence across HCs and tribunals when it comes to granting or denying virtual access. While the majority of the HCs have officially adhered to the mandate by having rules/SOPs in place, several tribunals don’t have formal rules and rely on cause list instructions. They don’t even have proper safeguards and grievance redressal mechanisms in place as opposed to the majority of the High Courts which provide options to litigants to inform the coordinator in case of poor quality of virtual hearing. The court may declare the hearing incomplete and allow re-connection.

● Application requirements pose a structural barrier with advance notice, schedule based requests, affidavits disproportionately affecting urgent matters and out-station litigants. These procedural filters operate as structural barriers by introducing documentary burdens. These requirements re-entrench physical presence as the preferred option rather than enhancing access to justice via video conferencing.

● Denial safeguards are inconsistent and often absent, with most forums not providing a guiding set of reasons on the basis of which a request for a virtual hearing could be denied. Moreover, many of the forums don’t even record the reasons for rejection. No High Court or Tribunal provides a formal appealing or review mechanism against denial.

● Grievance redressal mechanisms are largely technical and not rights-based, focusing on real-time troubleshooting. From the language of the rules and SOPs, it can be deduced that grievances are treated as technical inconveniences. What these Rules and SOPs ignore is that if a lawyer/litigant cannot hear the judge or the other way round, gets disconnected during the argument, cannot join the link because it wasn’t sent on time, is removed from the VC room, etc, it is a loss of their opportunity to be heard in

court. In a physical courtroom, if a lawyer is not allowed to enter or the lawyer is asked to leave before finishing arguments, that would immediately be seen as a serious judicial irregularity. It would be recorded in the order sheet, lead to an adjournment, and sometimes even be a ground for appeal. In a virtual setup, there is neither scope for recording the disruption nor any remedial mechanism.

● The majority of the tribunals/HCs prohibit raising complaints after the hearing has concluded, shifting the responsibility of connectivity failure onto the litigants.

● Tribunals lag significantly behind the HCs, with many lacking formal rules, and function on operational procedures and instructions provided in the cause-list or by providing bench-specific SOPs.

● Some forums have been found to engage multiple platforms across benches in the same jurisdiction without any disclosed standards governing platform selection, security compliance, or technological uniformity.