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DELIVERY
BY
MADAN B. LOKUR , JUDGE DELHI HIGH COURT
INDIA
The basic problems in the Indian legal system were pin-pointed by eminent jurists
constituting the National Commission to Review the working of the Constitution. In 2003,
they identified five problem areas in the functioning of the judiciary. These are:-
a)
b)
Injecting avoidable uncertainties in the law and thereby making the task of the
Executive more difficult and sometimes unmanageable.
c)
d)
e)
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Of these, the first can be easily addressed through the use of information
and communication technology, mainly involving the use of computers in various
aspects of the justice delivery system. Realizing this, the Supreme Court of India
took the initiative and constituted a committee called the E-Committee for Monitoring
Use of Information Technology and Administrative Reforms in the Indian Judiciary.
This Committee consists of a retired judge of a High Court assisted by a District
judge and a technical expert. It has since formulated a National Policy and Action
Plan for implementation of information and communication technology in the Indian
judiciary, which was launched by our Prime Minister on 5th October, 2005. The
budget allocation for the National Plan is in the region of Rs.854 crores or Rs.8.54
billion and it is expected to be implemented in three phases within five years. With
this, hopefully, the courts in India will be technologically self-sufficient. But until then,
varied efforts are continuing and these are making steady progress. However, it must
be appreciated that the computerization of courts, by its nature, is a dynamic process
of indefinite duration. There are two principal reasons for this:
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use of computers in courts. For convenience, this presentation considers the use
and application of computers directly in the justice delivery system, that is, use by
judges (and their staff); how administrative functions can be streamlined through
the use of computers for the benefits of court registries, both integrated and
cellular; and the benefits that lawyers and litigants derive from computerization of
courts.
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First Information Report (FIR) etc. In addition to this, a large number of
categories and sub-categories of cases have been identified and numerically
defined. For example, in criminal matters, a case involving a sentence of more
than 7 years is identified as 100.12 (sentence awarded is above 7 years and up
to 10 years imprisonment), 100.13 (sentence awarded is above ten years) while
a case involving a sentence of 3 to 7 years is identified as 100.10, etc.
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maintenance of statistics is simplified, and that is the key to any effective court
management exercise. Unless it is known how many cases are filed, and in
which category, it is not possible to make any headway in any planning process.
Unless there is information available both about the number of cases that are
filed and the related category, it is possible that some judges may be
overburdened and in fact this frequently happens in the courts in India,
particularly in the courts exercising criminal jurisdiction. Overburdening the
docket of a judge considerably reduces his efficiency and compounds the delay
and adds to the backlog of cases. It is difficult to overemphasize the need for
introducing simple management techniques in court administration and the use of
computer greatly simplifies this process.
The National Informatics Centre has developed all the software that has
been put to good use by the Delhi High Court and the Delhi District Court. In
criminal cases, experience has shown that when an FIR is filed in respect of
several accused persons, and if they are arrested, they tend to apply for bail at
different points of time. Of course, it would be of some importance to know the
role played by each accused when his bail application is taken up for
consideration, but if different bail applications are filed by different persons at
different points of time, in respect of the same offence, then the judge can be
spared the labour of going through the same FIR several times over, by the
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simple expedient of ensuring that all such bail applications are taken up together
on one particular day. Additionally, it has also been experienced that when
repeated bail applications are filed by the same under trial prisoner, the judge is
often unaware whether any previous bail application was filed by him and if so
how it was dealt with. Through the computer system now, this information can be
immediately generated and, in fact, published in the cause list of cases so that
the judge, the defence and prosecution advocates are all aware of the history of
the various bail applications that may have been filed by the same accused.
The use of digital signatures has greatly facilitated this task. The court
staff is merely required to ensure that every judicial order is digitally signed
before it is transmitted to the court server. On being digitally signed,each order
becomes tamper proof and, therefore, can be used as a certified copy of the
original. There is a proposal under consideration to permit an appeal being filed
on such a digitally signed copy, but that will require an amendment of the rules
and this may take sometime. Unfortunately, even through the use of the digital
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signature is not such a complicated affair, it has not been made use of as
universally as it should be.
basis, and the proceedings will then be recorded on a VCD so that there is a
permanent record of what the witnesses have said. The VCD can be played back
whenever required and the trial judge hearing final arguments in the case will
have the advantage of seeing the demeanour of the witnesses through the VCD.
It may be mentioned that the conduct of a civil trial through video conferencing
has the imprimatur of the Supreme Court and resort the video conferencing in
civil cases has already been resorted to in some cases. The existing techniques
will now be extended to criminal cases as well.
Case law research by judges and lawyers has now become extremely simple in
India through easy access to such CDs. In view of the large number of decisions
rendered by the courts in India, it is sometimes impossible to keep a track of latest
developments in the law and recent judgments delivered by the various constitutional
courts. Private enterprise has capitalized on this and now case law CDs are freely
available all over the country, containing judgments rendered by the Supreme Court as
well as judgments rendered by various High Courts. Apart from saving a considerable
amount of space and effort in maintaining a huge law library, searching out relevant case
law through the computer has now become relatively simple. Most computer savvy
lawyers and judges all over the country now do their legal research through case law
CDs or through websites maintained by private entrepreneurs. In fact, as a result of the
availability of case law virtually on the finger tips, some courts are now witnessing an
interesting phenomenon of a handful of judges carrying their laptops or tablet PCs into
the court room, not only for searching case law in the courtroom, but even taking notes
of arguments directly on the laptop.
Proper software management and the use of information and
communication technology (ICT) takes away a considerable amount of strain that
judges and judicial officers have in India due to the huge volume of pending
cases. Once the use of computers is encouraged, popularized and streamlined, it
will give judges a much required relief. Needless to say, with the continued and
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4
See for example State of Maharashtra v. Dr. Praful B. Desai, (2003) 4 SCC 601
The Supreme Court has approved trial by video conferencing in criminal cases in Kalyan
Chandra Sarkar v. Rajesh Ranjan, (2005)3 SCC 284 and Sakshi v. Union of India &
others, (2004) 5 SCC 518
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increased use of computers in court by judges and of course by the registry
(which is required to perform a large number of administrative functions), their
general efficiency has improved. While the scalability of the improvement is not
possible, there is no doubt that some of the hassles earlier faced by judges,
lawyers and litigants are not being encountered today. The difference, in terms of
efficiency, is quite perceptible, as one would expect and it is only a matter of time
when the use of computers in judicial functioning takes firm root, and the chronic
delays and backlog faced by judges and judicial officers in India may get wiped
out. This is not to suggest that computerization of courts is the panacea for
backlog and delays. It is only one of the factors that would help in reducing the
problem of arrears encountered by all courts in India.
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One of the problems faced by the court staff is of tedium brought about by
doing the same work for a number of years in the same environment. If details
about the number of years that staff members have put in on a particular
assignment are available, then transfer and rotation policies can be easily
implemented. Added to job ennui is another factor which is that some districts in
India are graded in accordance with the facilities that are available there. If an
officer is posted in a district where the facilities are not as they should be, it is
considered a hard posting and usually an officer is not required to serve in a
hard area for more than 2 or 3 years in his career. Availability of all this
information will certainly assist in bringing about some semblance of proper
human resources management and will assist the administrative authorities in
ensuring that each member of the staff, working either in the registry or in a
district, is given a fair deal in terms of transfers and assignments, based on
relevant considerations.
One serious problem faced by the court administration, and which is a
constant refrain everywhere in India, is the lack of space to store court records.
The huge space crunch is caused due to the large volume of case files and
outdated rules which require records to be maintained for several years, and this
is getting worse over the years. Some courts, such as the Supreme Court have
amended their rules and have weeded out records that are not required, but
many of the High Courts have not made similar amendments to their rules with
the result that useless records are maintained for long periods of time. One of the
ways of overcoming the space crunch is by digitizing the record through a
process of scanning them and saving them on high capacity hard discs. This
process was intimated by the Supreme Court about 2 years ago under the
supervision of the National Informatics Centre, and now the Delhi High Court has
recently begun this process which is expected to take as many as 5 years for
completion but it is better late than never. After the digitization process is over,
the records of all cases will be digitally stored and can be accessed through a
local are network. Presently, for going through the contents of a case file, the
records have to be physically procured but with digitization, that will, of course,
no longer be necessary. In other words, not only will the digitization process be
beneficial in terms of making much wanted storage space available, but it will
make access to case records easier and faster.
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small examples are added up, it makes a huge difference to the overall efficiency
of the court and its registry.
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now that that is over, a completely computerized library is available for use by
judges of the High Court. The success story has been replicated in the libraries in
the district court in Delhi as well as the library of the High Court Bar Association.
The efficiency generated by the use of computers in a library can be imagined by
considering that only one person is required to run a library having a daily
issue/receipt of about 300 books-a number far greater than the requirements of
most courts.
One of the more significant problems that the justice delivery system in
India is faced with relates to the management of witnesses. Despite valuable
inputs, beginning with those given in the 14th Report of the Law Commission
prepared in 1958, the court administration has not been able to come to grip with
the problem of managing the appearance of witnesses for examination and cross
examination. Due to poor court management, the problem is aggravated and
witnesses are required to make fruitless appearance in the Court on several
occasions. Of course, this is an administrative problem that needs to be tackled
independently but for each visit to the court, a witness is entitled to
reimbursement, which is described in some places as diet money and in some
others as bhatta. For the witness to collect the diet money, he is often required
to go through a long drawn-out process that could consume a couple of hours on
every visit. The result is that quite often witnesses do not even bother to collect
their diet money. Through the use of computers, the process has become so
much more simplified that a witness is now in a position to collect the diet money
within a matter of minutes. The details of the witness are available in the
computer at the time of issuing summons to him and when he does appear, all
that he is required to do is to produce an identification document and collect the
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diet money due to him. Since the process is quite rapid, the long queues that
existed prior to the computerization of this process have disappeared.
Many of the ideas and suggestions that have been implemented, as
mentioned above, are so simple and obvious that one wonders why they were
not implemented earlier. The problem really is one of planning and management.
If initiative is taken at any level of the administrative hierarchy of the Court,
professionalism and consequent efficiency is bound to evolve. A few steps of this
nature will by themselves tone up the court administration and thereby the justice
delivery system which is today bogged down by antiquated manual processes
which must give way, sooner than later, to technological advances.
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order is possible almost immediately but due to administrative reasons, it is
normally made available the next day. Even this has now become unnecessary
because orders delivered by the court are posted on the website of the courts,
particularly the Delhi High Court and the Delhi District Court. Unless it is
necessary for a litigant or lawyer, files are not now usually inspected, nor are
uncertified copies applied for.
The use of the Internet has been a tremendous boon for litigants and
lawyers inasmuch as the websites hosted by the Supreme Court of India, all the
High Court in the country and the Delhi District Court contain all relevant
information that any lawyer or litigant may require. Readers are advised to visit
these websites in order to enable them to appreciate the effective utilization of
the Internet. In the website hosted by the Delhi District Courts, over the last about
three years, more than 350,000- hits have been recorded making it by far the
most popular website in the country relating to judicial administration. The
websites, particularly that of the Delhi District Court, contain not only the recent
decisions rendered by the Delhi High Court but also decisions rendered by
judicial officers in the district courts. In addition, there is adequate information
available on the website for the use of any person who may perhaps be involved
in litigation for the first time. The annual report of the Delhi District Courts as well
as sundry information have all been provided for in the website. Of course, there
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5.
6.
www.delhihighcourt.nic.in
www.supremecourtofindia.nic.in
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is always room for improvement and more and more features can be added on to
the district courts website from time to time, as indeed to other websites
managed by all the courts in the Country.
In criminal cases, the biggest problem faced by most courts is the presence of
stock witness and in matters concerning grant of bail, the reliability of the
surety. Both these problems are easily tackled through the computer system by
maintaining a complete database of witnesses and sureties. A simple search
command can bring out all the information that a court would need about the
witnesses and the cases in which they are appearing as such, thereby
eliminating the presence of stock witnesses. Similarly, a search command can
identify all sureties so that the professional ones are eliminated from
consideration. Of course necessary programmes would have to be developed for
this purpose and the National Informatics Centre is going about this job in Delhi.
CONCLUSION
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process, like judicial education, and needs to be sustained over a period of time
and requires the active involvement of users. If adequate attention is not given to
training, then it is more than likely that the use of technology in courts will not
yield the desired result and will merely be a waste of resources.