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The coronavirus third wave is shocking the nation and the spread is quite huge. The Supreme Court is completely shut after ten judges are tested positive for coronavirus. Daily tests are conducted for the staff members and the judges, lawyers of Supreme Court. Supreme Court has 32 judges including the Chief Justice of India and ten among them are tested positive for Covid-19. Justice KM Joseph and PS Narasimha recovered completely and they returned back to the work recently. Eight judges are away from work are in isolation. Chief Justice of India NV Ramana is finding it tough to administrate and allocate the hearings about the urgent matters.

A total number of 100-200 tests of RT-PCR are conducted on a regular basis to find the infection in the Supreme Court. Many staff members too are tested positive for coronavirus. Out of the 1500 staff members in the Supreme Court, 400 of them are tested positive during this third wave of coronavirus. This is equal to 30 percent of the staff getting tested positive. The infections in Supreme Court turned doubled in just a week after some of the judges tested positive on January 9th. Some of the cases are taken through virtual hearing. As per the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), red alert is issued as the positivity rate is more than 5 percent. CJI NV Ramana is personally monitoring the health of the judges who are tested positive for coronavirus. The physical hearing of cases in the Supreme Court is kept on hold for now.

By Siva Kumar