'District Level Advocates Provide Spine And Credibility For Judicial Administration': Justice Chandrachud Launches Awareness Programme On E-Courts

Supreme Court Judge and Chairperson of the top Court's E-Committee, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud on Saturday inaugurated the District Level Awareness Programme in Regional Languages on E-court services and E-filings along with manuals and tutorials for advocates to gain knowledge about the services available to them. Speaking at an event conducted online, Justice Chandrachud threw light on the vision of the E-Committee to ensure technology reaches each corner of the country and lawyers in the remotest districts could benefit from it. It was informed that this training programme for lawyers is part of a 2-pronged approach which the E-Committee has adopted. On one hand, the focus is on creating facilities through which litigants & advocates can access e-governance facilities, while on the other hand, members of the Bar need to be trained to make the most of these facilities. "Merely providing facilities won't work unless the members of the Bar are duly trained to use the facilities", stated Justice Chandrachud.J DYC- Now we don't want these lawyers to remain where they are. We have moved from the age of old forms of transportation into new forms, & our young lawyers must be part of this movement.— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) July 25, 2020 Highlighting a number of initiatives taken by the Committee in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in the realm of the Judiciary, Justice Chandrachud stressed on the need for these developments to permeate to each advocate, in each district. "This 2 pronged programme is based on the knowledge that there's a technological divide in India. Those working in metropolitan cities have access to the best technology. But credibility & spine or backbone of judicial administration in the country is provided by advocates who work in district levels. The first interface of the citizen with injustice or their attempt to remedy injustice is when they contact a lawyer at the district level. Unless we carry every member of the Bar with us on this mission we can never succeed. This project is an attempt to spread knowledge of ICT initiatives to members of the Bar. So our target is to attain 100% computer literacy for members of the Indian Bar." He further emphasized that the project was an initiative which could only succeed if members of the Bar not only embrace it, but take pride in it. Towards this end, it was informed, a training programme has been launched through which some "master trainers" have been trained intensively by the Committee, who have, in turn, trained a wider pool of trainers, to further impart training to lawyers in small districts. "The idea is to start a programme of creating trainers amongst advocates themselves", added the Judge. Justice Chandrachud further asserted that it was the responsibility of the Court to create facilities for members of the Bar. Averring to lawyers who have come from very rural upbringings and have managed to migrate to the legal profession instead of being engaged in manual labour or agriculture, Justice Chandrachud urged that it was imperative to ensure that they do not remain stagnated. Therefore, he reiterated, facilities need to be in place for young lawyers to thrive, and the 2-pronged approach was an attempt in that direction. "It's a great achievement for that person to have passed law school and come to court. Now we don't want these lawyers to remain where they are. We have moved from the age of old forms of transportation into new forms & our young lawyers must be part of this movement. …We cannot expect that a young lawyer will have a laptop. Where does a young lawyer spend ₹40,000 to buy a laptop from? Surely in that case, we must provide an E-governance centre, where they can go avail these services. If anyone of them hasn't gone to the best educational institutions, the Court should be the centre point for providing education, so they can easily learn." This awareness programme is the first step towards achieving the aforementioned goal of the E-Committee, added Chandrachud J. The next step is to collect & prepare a list of all advocates throughout India, to communicate to them the services that are available, while the third phase is to train shortlisted advocates intensively by the E-Committee, to become master trainers among the advocates. "This 3-phased programme has been envisaged & we plan to complete it in the next few months with the help of all Bar Councils & District Bar Associations", he informed.J DYC- we are now looking to extend this to all courts in the country. We have the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), which has 12.34 crore orders of pending & disposed of cases. We have these kind of stats, but we are not satisfied with this. This is only the tip of the iceberg— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) July 25, 2020 Speaking extensively on the issue of resumption of open Court hearings, Justice Chandrachud explained that...

'District Level Advocates Provide Spine And Credibility For Judicial Administration': Justice Chandrachud Launches Awareness Programme On E-Courts

Nilashish Chaudhary

Tags