'Citizens Are Entitled To Know What Goes On In The Court', Justice DY Chandrachud On Live-Streaming Of Court Proceedings

"We have formulated live streaming rules so that cases can be live-streamed, the hearings before a court can be live-streamed for the rest of the country. Because I do believe that citizens are entitled to know what goes on in the courts, they are entitled to know why cases are adjourned, whether judges sit from morning to evening in deciding cases. It is the basic right of the citizens to know", told Justice DY Chandrachud on Saturday.He was speaking at the Inaugural Function of 'B' & 'C' Wings of the High Court Annexe Building of Bombay High Court, Bench at Aurangabad.The judge threw light on several projects, proposed and underway, of the Supreme Court E-Committee, of which he is the Chairperson, to indicate how to use technology to pave the way for moving into the future. He remarked, "Let us also celebrate some of the achievements of the Indian judiciary" "We find from the National Judicial Data Grid that we have 15.42 crore orders available on the NJDG. 4 crore cases are pending but we have 11 crore cases on the NJDG which have been disposed off and of which orders are available. The High Courts have 56.02 lakh cases pending, but 3.17 crore cases have been disposed off. During the COVID pandemic, 2.18 crore cases were registered in India and 1.48 crore cases were disposed off by the district judiciary in India. 55.75 lakh judgments are now available on the NJDG. We have an elastic search facility so lawyers who cannot afford the cost of paying for a software in the open market can search what they want to- whether it be a case under labour law or under the Motor Vehicles Act", he told."Virtual courts have been set up across the country. 12 states and union territories including Maharashtra have a virtual court. You will be interested to note that as many as 91,000 cases involving traffic challans have been disposed off and 180 crores worth of fine has been realised from citizens who can pay fines on the online portal of the virtual courts. We provide citizen centric services for common citizens. The service portal which has been created by the E-committee with the Department of Justice has 75 lakh hits per day and the mobile application has 35 lakh hits per day. 3.85 lakh SMSes and emails are sent by the E-courts services to the citizens across the nation. Our website, in one year, has had 224 crore transactions", he continued."We propose to set up E-Seva Kendra across India so that all the services under the judicial system will be brought under 1 roof- virtual courts, e-filing, e-payment, certified copies, process fee. Imagine a woman who has been deserted by her husband and who has to recover Rs.1000 per month as maintenance. Does she have to come to the court every month to receive that Rs.1000? We have 19,000 courts on the ICT platform, over 3000 court complexes and 1000 jails with video conferencing", he told."Our next stage in the E-courts project is the phase 3 document where we propose to digitise as many as 3100 crore documents. But digitisation must go hand-in-hand with e-filing. Because if we don't have e-filing, five years down the lane we will be digitising old documents. Bombay, Allahabad, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi will lead the five pilot projects for digitisation across the country", he continued.He added that the government being the largest litigant in India, he has written to all High Court Chief Justices recently that by January, 2022, all cases of the government of India and state governments must be e-filed in our district courts and the High Courts. "Let the government of India and state governments make the beginning. I am sure with the presence of CM Udhhav Thackeray and of the Union Minister for Law Kiren Rijiu that the beginning will be made in the state of Maharashtra", said Justice Chandrachud."We are looking at data privacy, and access to differently-abled who cannot see or hear so that they can access our website. Finally, under the interoperable criminal justice system, we are linking every aspect of the administration of criminal justice, namely, prisons, courts, the police station and the forensic science laboratory", he said.Having spoken about the celebration of justice, Justice Chandrachud insisted that "we must also understand the flipside of the work we do". "Just like we have a cause for celebrating justice, let us also have a cause for introspection, self-reflection on what path in the future lies ahead for us", he said."Sitting in the Supreme Court, you are confronted with the extent of Justice and the extent of injustice all over the country when citizens come to us. A convict who has been in prison for 35 years has not been released, an undertrial who is in jail for 12 years and against whom charges have not been framed! These are some of the realities of the Indian judiciary which we have to confront"Talking of the state of Maharashtra, he pointed out, "We have over 48 lakh cases which are pending as of date. 21,000 cases are more than 30 years...

'Citizens Are Entitled To Know What Goes On In The Court', Justice DY Chandrachud On Live-Streaming Of Court Proceedings

Mehal Jain

Tags