Mathews J. Nedumpara
98205 35428
4th July 2026

To
The Chief Justice of Gujarat
Ahmedabad

Also To:
The Registrar General,
High Court of Gujarat.

District and Principal Judge, Baroda, Gujarat.

May it please Your Ladyship,

Sub: Refusal to receive a suit seeking ad interim injunction, apparently because of a request for VC hearing – reg.

Virtual hearing facilities were established in all courts and Tribunals in India during COVID with great fanfare. Necessity became a great virtue. No sooner was COVID over than the euphoria of transparency ended. Subordinate courts in different parts of the country shut down their VC hearing facilities. In the Bombay High Court, public viewing of VC hearings has been suspended.
It was my humble self, along with a few lawyers and litigants, who started the campaign for video recording of court proceedings. Later, many joined us. Finally, in 2017, the Supreme Court declared that video recording of court proceedings, preservation of such records, and livestreaming are an integral part of the very freedom of speech and expression.

However, eight years down the line, VC hearing faces a grave threat. Judges fear transparency and are averse to the very idea of accountability. This leaves us with no option but to revive the Campaign for Video Recording of Court Proceedings.

When a client came to me for filing a suit, I accepted because I thought I could appear online. My juniors went to Baroda on Thursday. They met the District Judge and requested him to provide a VC hearing. He agreed without hesitation, for the following week. There is great urgency; therefore, I requested a VC hearing today. However, things changed. The Registry is refusing to receive the file, which was returned after making the changes the Registry had suggested. I have no idea why.
I therefore spoke to the Registrar General, High Court of Gujarat. While I was explaining my grievance, my call was disconnected. It was not a call drop, because the Registrar General refused to pick up when I called him repeatedly.

The right to institute a suit is inherent in every subject. The courts are free to reject it if sufficient grounds exist. But to refuse to even provisionally register the suit because I sought an online hearing is absolutely unjust and constitutes the gravest contempt of court, being unthinkable and a gross interference with the administration of justice.

I therefore request the Hon’ble Chief Justice of Gujarat to direct the authorities concerned to receive my client’s suit, which my juniors have already tendered to them, and to place the matter before the Principal District Judge for a hearing on the objections which the Registry, for reasons better known to itself, has not reduced to writing. Alternatively, if there are no office objections, I request that the matter be placed before him and that he hear me online. Or, in the further alternative, that the case be allotted to another judge, with a request that the judge hear me online on the question of interim injunction.

In the unstinted faith that the needful would be done, I remain,

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely,
Mathews J. Nedumpara