Virtual Courts Are The New Symbol And New Image Of the Indian Judiciary: Justice DY Chandrachud

"One of the very disturbing aspects (of the criminal justice system) is the delay in the communication of order of courts to prison establishments, including bails", Justice D. Y. Chandrachud has said.He was speaking at the inauguration of the Model Virtual Courtrooms in the Districts of Angul and Nayagarh in Orissa, e-Custody Certificate System and Automated Email service for dissemination of case information, organised by the Orissa High Court."The custody certificate is an initiative which should be spread across the country. I may be pardoned for trying to plagiarise what the Orissa judiciary is doing- this is an initiative we will now spread across the country as well", said the judge."I recently passed an order quashing preventive detention under the National Security Act solely on the ground that there was an unexplained delay at various stages in the communication of the orders, communication of the representations of the detenue. I do believe that in today's times when we are benefited by ICT, all these tools at our command should be put to use, whether at the judiciary, the administrative wing or the legislative wing of the State. It is up to us to now utilise these initiatives to further the need to provide expeditious justice. These initiatives must be understood in the context of the criminal justice administration and the significant challenges that we face", he continued."According to the National Prisons Portal, around five lakh inmates are inside prisons as of date. We are in the process of connecting prisons with courts so that every single inmate, undertrial and convict, can be tracked and the respective courts can be alerted. Electronic communications between courts and jails will be established. I do believe that the initiative of a custody certificate can be suitably tweaked and furthered by providing and enhancing this communication between the courts and the prison establishments and the prison administration in general, whether it be in the nature of premature release of convicts or grant of furlough or grant of parole", told Justice Chandrachud.Aryan Khan's case has again brought to the fore the issue of delay in release of a prisoner from jail, despite obtaining bail order and completing surety formalities. In this case, the delay in Khan's release was caused due to certain timing regulations in the Mumbai Central Prison at Arthur Road.Virtual CourtsJustice Chandrachud described the virtual courts as the "new symbol and new image of the Indian judiciary". Asserting that technology is to make life simpler and not complicated and to respond to every stakeholder in the system, Justice Chandrachud expressed that virtual courts considerably speed up trials but, more importantly, provide dignity for all human beings, all stakeholders who come in contact with the judicial system. "Because by these initiatives, we send a message that we value the time of our citizens", he said.Incorporation of technology to remediate huge pendency of criminal casesThe judge indicated that there are 2 crore 95 lakh criminal cases which are pending in the district judiciary of the country, of which 77.5% cases are more than one year old. "We know as judges that the major reasons for delay in disposal of criminal cases is the fact that the accused remain absconding, particularly after bail is granted, and secondly, due to non-appearance of official witnesses during the course of the criminal trial for recording evidence. This is the common part pattern across the country", he told."I believe we have answers in technology. One of the key initiatives of the E-committee of the Supreme Court is to ensure that we are able to actually track and monitor which are those cases where the accused are absconding. And we should be able to track them at the level of the police station, at the level of every district so that the superintendents of the police are at a glance able to know which are the cases which are pending because the accused is absconding under the various police stations under their command. We can escalate it to the level of the DGP and IGP of the state. For delays being caused by non-appearance of official witnesses, time has now come to make recording of evidence of official witnesses through video conferencing platforms as a rule as opposed to being an exception", he said.Digitisation of records and E-filing"We are in the process of now commencing a very ambitious scheme of digitising court records across the country. We had set up a broad-based committee of High Court judges as well as experts from the private sector and governmental institutions. A detailed SOP has now been prepared which has now been unveiled for all the chief justices. We have chosen certain High Courts as pilot high courts for the implementation of the pilot project", told Justice Chandrachud."Another initiative is to have a nationwide consultant for taking the message forward of digitisation of court records across the...

Virtual Courts Are The New Symbol And New Image Of the Indian Judiciary: Justice DY Chandrachud

Mehal Jain

Tags