The Supreme Court Wednesday ruled out the possibility of conducting physical hearings at present in view of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic situation.

A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde said that a seven-judge committee of the apex court would consider after four weeks the aspect of re-starting physical hearing in the top court.

The CJI’s observation came when a lawyer sought resumption of physical court hearing to deal with a batch of petitions relating to grant of quota in promotions to SC/ST employees in various states.

The apex court has been conducting hearings through video-conferencing, days before the nationwide lockdown had started on March 25 to contain the spread of the deadly virus.