13/04/2020 - Judiciary

KEY POINTS

·         After the Kerala and Bombay High Courts’ successful use of a video-conferencing app to live-stream proceedings, courts in India, including the lower courts, need to roll this out on a war footing. The Covid-19 outbreak and the concomitant social distancing requirements make this an imperative.

·         Advocates too participated in the proceedings from their residences/offices, while the law officers of the state and the Centre were also logged in.

·         The National e-Governance Plan had envisaged e-Courts as a mission-mode project in 2006—e-Courts would be paperless with a large database of case records and other legal data, and courtrooms would be equipped for video-conferencing, among other things.

·         While there has been significant progress in some areas—whatever digitisation of case records has been achieved so far, has helped fast-track justice delivery—in others, it is yet to reach the desired pace.

·         Hearings through video-conferencing between the courtroom and jails, for instance, aimed to bring down costs and delays, incurred in ferrying undertrials from the jail to the courts and back.

·         However, in 2019, the average number of video calls made in 25 states (excluding Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, that each had nearly 50,000 video calls) was just 2,400, with some states having made just double-digit video calls.

·         The slow pace of adoption of technology by the judiciary is rather shocking given technology can deliver significant efficiency and transparency gains.

·         The judiciary should treat the Covid-19 outbreak as an opportunity to reorient itself on tech-adoption. It can perhaps begin with making video-conferencing and live-streaming of proceedings compulsory for most cases.

·         Some courts have approved the use of WhatsApp and e-mails to deliver summons, most courts in the country treat only the paper summons as sacrosanct. The Indian judiciary has to make up for lost time, and keep up with the times, when it comes to adopting technology.

Covid-19 pandemic situation led to the increase in technology usage in Indian judicial system.Before the pandemic,this adoption of technology was at a slower pace which may be one of the reasons for nearly 3.2 crore cases pending in the lower courts.

NECESSITY FOR ADOPTION OF TECHNOLOGY BY JUDICIARY :

Costs and Delays :

The costs and delays which occur for bringing  the undertrial  from prison to court and back to prison can be reduced significantly by the usage of video-conferencing applications.

Efficiency  :

"Let a hundred guilty be acquitted but one innocent should not be convicted".This statement is the guiding principle for our courts while announcing a judgement.Hence employment of Artificial Intelligence in the current system helps judge in enhanced case analysis which eventually result in an efficient judgement,thereby,the principles of law can be upheld.

Simpler Access :

E-Courts,adopted as per National E-Governance plan in 2006 led to the digitization of case records and equipping court rooms with video- conferencing items.Simpler Access of records helps in announcement of judgements in faster pace.

Enlightenment :

Due to the time and distance constraints,people were not able to follow court proceedings these days.Virtual proceedings can help people to overcome these issues thereby promoting enlightenment in legal matters.

REQUIRED PRECAUTIONS:

1.Though technology implementation is essential,using applications like Zoom etc,rises privacy concerns,well encrypted applications are advisable.

2.Sometimes Artificial Intelligence may direct the judge in wrong path .This direction may lead to faulty judgement.So,judge should be cautious while using artificial intelligence.

Supreme court,recently using article 142,passed directions for all courts across the country to extensively use video conferencing for judicial proceedings illustrates the importance of technology implementation in Judiciary.

Please review.