The Madras high court used online messenger and video conferencing service Skype to conduct the legal proceedings in a case asking for police protection at a church wedding, reported The Firstpost.

Justice S Vaidyanathan of the Madras HC’s Madurai bench heard the Ramanathapuram district case at his residence, on the suggestion of the administrative Judge of the high court Justice V Ramasubramanian, due to the unavailability of judges at the station and because the petition for urgent hearing was filed at the last moment.

The judge directed the police to provide protection for the marriage ceremony after going through the case documents that were scanned and mailed to him for his perusal. The certified copy of the order directing the police to provide protection was mailed to the police at 8PM yesterday.

The court officials reportedly claimed that this was the first time in its history that the high court used Skype for hearing a case.

The police had objected to the marriage ceremony being performed at the church due to an existing dispute between the petitioner and the church authorities. The police had allegedly coercively obtained from the petitioner, an undertaking to perform the marriage in some other church.