Guwahati HC extends all Covid-19 interim orders till 15th June considering the ongoing second wave of the pandemic [READ ORDER]

The Guwahati High Court, on Monday (31/05/2021), extended all the Covid-19 related interim orders till 15th June 2021. The decision came in hearing a Suo Moto case taken up by the court to address pandemic-related matters.

The matter was heard by a full bench comprising Chief Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justices N. Kotiswar Singh and Manash Ranjan Pathak through video conferencing. 

The matter came up for the courts consideration earlier on 10th May 2021. The court had extended the operation of all interim orders until 1st June 2021, which was approaching without significant improvement in the pandemic situation.

Advocate General D. Saikia for the State, Senior Advocate U.K. Nair for the High Court and Senior Advocate S.N. Sarma for the Bar Association, submitted their views on the issue.

The court, after hearing all the arguments, ordered that:

We are also of the considered view that under the present circumstances, the order should be extended. Accordingly, the order dated 10.05.2021 is hereby extended for a further period of two weeks i.e. till 15.06.2021.

The interim orders extended by the court also cover the bail orders and anticipatory bail orders. The bail orders were earlier extended till 1st June 2021 and present order extends it till 15th June 2021. The court took note that the sureties for these bails will be only for a limited period and extended the sureties also till 15th June 2021.

The court observed that:

We are conscious of the fact that many of the sureties which have been given for the interim bails, in different cases in the State, would technically be for a limited period only. However, since we have already extended the bail orders initially till 01.06.2021 and now till 15.06.2021, automatically these sureties will also stand extended.

The matter is to come up for next hearing on 14th June 2021.

[READ ORDER]