National Company Law Appellate Tribunal
Revised Standard Operating Procedure for Ld. Advocate/ Authorised Representative/Party-in-Person for Mentioning the matter for hearing through virtual mode.
As directed, the following is the revised Standard Operating Procedure for hearing of cases through virtual mode (Cisco Webex Meeting Platform) from 04.08.2020 till further orders.
MENTIONING
1. The mentioning application shall be submitted only by e-mail at the email address registrar-nclat@nic.in. If the mentioning application is allowed, the Learned Advocate/Authorized Representative /Party-in-Person shall file the Appeal/Interlocutory application in hard copy as per procedure prescribed under NCLAT Rules. After curing all the defects, the case would be listed in the cause list to be published on the NCLAT website (www.nclat.nic.in). The court fee shall be paid through Bharat Kosh (https://bharatkosh .gov.in).
2. The mentioning application must inter-alia clearly contain the case-details (Diary No., date of filing, cause title, appeal details etc.) and contact details of the Learned Advocate/Authorised Representative/ Party-in-Person such as e-mail ID, mobile number with alternate number(s), full company/office address with PIN Code.
3. The parties shall not be permitted to rely upon any document other than the documents duly filed along with the Appeal/Interlocutory application in conformity with the NCLAT Rules.
4. The mentioning application must contain a separate paragraph giving consent for taking up the matter through virtual mode.
5. In the mentioning application, the Learned Advocate/Authorised Representative/ Party-in-Person must specify as to how he/she would link to the Hon’ble Bench in video-conferencing mode, i.e. whether through desktop/laptop/mobile phone. In this regard, parties may kindly use desktop/laptop/tablet computers that will provide stable and smooth connectivity for video-conference. It may be noted that the speed of link should be more than 2 Mbps. It has been observed that signal drop/incoming call on mobile phones can delink such devices from an ongoing video-conference disrupting such VC and such devices may be avoided as far as possible.
6. Link to enable the Ld. Advocate/Representative/Party-in-Person to join the Video Conference shall be sent to the email provided in the mentioning application. Please note that a maximum of three appearance links will be provided per party (AOR, Junior Lawyer, Sr. Advocate / Arguing Counsel) and that it should not be shared with anyone.
7. The standard protocol about one person speaking at a time in VC shall be All the parties shall be given chance, in turns, to present their case by the Hon’ble Bench. Any attempt to jump in during the presentation by another party may disrupt the proceedings. It may also invite ‘muting’ of the microphone of the disrupting party. In case a person wants to make a point she/he may raise her/his hand to invite the attention of the Hon’ble Bench. She/he can start speaking only after she/he has been allowed to do so. Cross talking or discussion could be done only after the mic has been put in ‘mute’ mode.
8. The directions of the Hon’ble Bench should be strictly followed at all times in VC to enable smooth hearing.
9. All decorum regarding dress of presenters and in verbal presentations should be maintained.
10. Any recording and use in any manner of the proceedings of the hearing through VC is strictly prohibited. Infringement may invite stringent action against the erring party.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR JOINING VIDEO CONFERENCING
The parties may note that, for the present, the matters shall be heard by the Hon’ble Bench through web-based video-conferencing system on the ‘CISCO Webex Meeting’ platform.
It may be further noted that the smooth functioning of the video-conference is squarely dependent upon and subject to the connectivity [signalstrength/bandwidth] available at the end of the remote user(s), and hence it is expected that any party joining a hearing through video-conference shall ensure that robust connectivity and bandwidth are available at their end. In this regard, parties may use broadband connection of minimum 2 Mbps/dedicated 4G data connection.
The parties may also ensure that no other device or application is connected to or using the bandwidth when the hearing by video-conferencing is progressing on their CISCO Webex-enabled computer (preferable) or mobile.
For ease-of-use, parties may kindly note the following Standard Operating Procedure in respect of hearing of cases through video conferencing mode:
1. The Invitation Link for appearance and viewing, as the case may be, will be sent by the Registry to the given mobile no(s)/e-mail id(s) by email/WhatsApp around half-an-hour before the scheduled hearing. Parties may also note that each of the links sent to any device is required to be unique and hence, parties may not share or forward such link(s) to any other person or device nor shall they enable others to join the hearing through video conference.
2. To join the Virtual Court Room through Cisco Webex Meeting using Desktop/Laptop/Tablet PC, please read the instructions provided in Annexure ‘A’.
3. Upon clicking the “Join” button, the party would be prompted to enter the display name wherein the party is required to write his/her name with designation by prefixing item no. (of the cause list) in the space given i.e.: ITEM NO. 1 – Gajendra Singh – Appellant OR ITEM NO. 1 – Gaurav Rawat – Respondent OR ITEM NO. 1 – Chetan Rawat PARTY-IN-PERSON, as the case may be, and thereafter the party is required to click on the “JOIN” button.
4. Upon having joined the Courtroom in virtual mode, the arguing counsel shall introduce himself/herself to the Hon’ble Bench and thereafter, shall wait for the instructions from the Hon’ble Bench. On being asked, the party may make submissions and on completion of the submissions, shall at once ‘mute’ the MIC of the respective device. If the Hon’ble Bench requires the party to make further submission(s), the party may then ‘unmute’ the MIC of the device and again, on completion of the submission, put the MIC on ‘mute’
5. It is important for the parties to remember to keep their MIC on ‘mute’ at all times, except when the Hon’ble Bench requires them to make submission(s). Thus, when one party is making submissions, it is imperative that all other participants shall keep their respective MIC muted failing which the possibility of MIC catching audio feed from the speakers and creating `echo/noise disturbance’ would become very high and may disturb the video conference.
6. It may be noted that simultaneous submissions by more than one party at any given time should be avoided and each party may indicate their requirement to speak/submit by seeking permission from the Hon’ble Bench, by raising hand. Once permitted by the Hon’ble Bench, the party shall first ‘unmute’ the MIC and thereafter make submissions, as per clauses 4 and 5 above.
7. During the course of hearing through video-conferencing, the parties may kindly keep in mind that they are participating in COURT PROCEEDINGS, and hence it is expected that they would not resort to any indecorous conduct or dress or comment. Further, the parties are required to ensure that the proceedings by video conference are neither recorded/stored nor broadcasted, in any manner whatsoever, as recording/copying/storing and/or broadcasting, by any means of the hearings and proceedings before the Tribunal is expressly prohibited. A breach of this rule shall apart from entailing penal consequences, render such recording inadmissible in any court proceedings.
8. Parties are required to stay online (but in MUTE mode) till the Hon’ble Bench concludes the hearing of their matter, whereafter the parties may disconnect from video-conference.
9. After publication of cause list, a link for video conferencing will be provided to Learned Advocate/Authorised Representative/ Party-in‑ Person by the Registry through e-mail/SMS half an hour before the hearing of the matter.
10. The Competent Authority has been pleased to direct that the Ld. advocates could wear “plain white-shirt/white-salwar-kameez/ white saree, with a plain white neck band” during the hearings before the NCLAT through virtual mode.
Note: Link for video conferencing will be provided to Learned Advocate/Authorised Representative/ Party-in-Person on the e-mail ID as mentioned in their Appeal/Interlocutory application.
For any technical support parties may contact the following officials during the office hours on working days:
VC Support – Mr. Vivek Rawat (9971517758), Mr. Sohrab Naqvi (9811226764), Mr. Chetan Rawat (9968313431), Mr. Mohan Sharma (9650969521) and Mr. Anubhav Kumar (8920544917)
VC Technical Issues – Mr. Gajendra Singh (9560014361), Mr. Satyanarayan (9871547911).
e-mail ID: itsupport@nclat.nic.in
