'Kerala HC Far Ahead, Developed Own Software Without Outsourcing': Supreme Court Lauds Kerala High Court's Case Management System

The Supreme Court yesterday lauded the Case Management System introduced by the Kerala High Court with a goal to achieve complete automation and a paperless court.A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta was hearing the suo motu case taken up over lack of functional CCTV cameras in police stations across Rajasthan, when Justice Mehta expressed appreciation for the High Court's initiative.Senior Advocate Siddharth Dave (the Amicus) suggested to the Court that the Union may be asked to come up with a software for a centralized dashboard, which can then be adopted by states.On this, Justice Mehta said, "software can be developed by anyone, Kerala is far ahead of everyone...they have developed indigenous software in High Court also, they have their indigenous software without falling back on any outsourcing agency". The Amicus acknowledged the observation, but highlighted that there are much more resources at the Union's command.Briefly put, the Kerala High Court's CMS governs the entire process of case-flow from the filing stage until the uploading of the order on the system. In this manner, the system has tried to incorporate absolute automation, transparency, access, and interoperability. It is the very first Court Management Software system in the country endowed with the ability to automatically consume the data of e-filed cases.The system provides Dashboards for Judges, Advocates, Parties in person, Advocates' Clerks, the Advocate General, the Central Government Counsel, and the Standing Counsel. One of the most significant aspects of this system has been the increased accessibility provided to all stakeholders.To put the system in place, the judges of the High Court took special care to hire a special five member high level IT team. The team was put together in 2019 and each member had several years of experience in the latest technology.Even though many courts across the country have implemented e-filing by digitizing their filing system, the unique aspect of Kerala High Court's system is its interoperability which makes it remotely accessible to all its stakeholders, allowing a much larger demographic to participate in the justice delivery system.Last year, the Kerala High Court instructed the trial courts to mandatorily use AI-tools to transcribe witness statements. Detailed feature on the Kerala High Court's CMS can be read here and here.Case Title:(1) IN RE LACK OF FUNCTIONAL CCTVS IN POLICE STATIONS Versus, SMW(C) No. 7/2025(2) PARAMVIR SINGH SAINI Versus BALJIT SINGH, SLP (Crl) No.3543/2020 (and connected cases)

'Kerala HC Far Ahead, Developed Own Software Without Outsourcing': Supreme Court Lauds Kerala High Court's Case Management System

Debby Jain

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