E Court Arrives

 E Court Arrives

 

 

Context :

 

 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday launched various new initiatives under the e-court project on the occasion of Constitution Day in the national capital.

The initiatives launched by the Prime Minister include Virtual Justice Clock, JustIS mobile App 2.0, Digital court and S3WaaS Websites.

The Project is an effort to provide services to litigants, lawyers and the judiciary through ICT enablement of courts.

"Virtual Justice Clock is an initiative to exhibit vital statistics of the justice delivery system at the Court level giving the details of :

 

#  the cases instituted,

#  cases disposed and

#  pendency of cases on a day/week/month basis , at the Court level.

 

 

The effort is to make the functioning of the courts accountable and transparent by sharing with the public the status of case disposals by the court.

The public can access the Virtual Justice Clock of any court establishment on the District Court's website," read the statement.

JustIS Mobile App 2.0 is a tool available to judicial officers for effective court and case management by monitoring the pendency and disposal of not only his court but also individual judges working under them.

 

 

This App is also made available to High Court and Supreme Court Judges who can now monitor the pendency and disposal of all the States and Districts under their jurisdiction

 

 

The digital court is an initiative to make court records available to the judge in digitised form to enable the transition to Paperless Courts.

S3WaaS Website is a framework to:

 

#  generate,

#  configure,

#  deploy and

#  manage websites

 

for publishing specified information and services related to district judiciary. S3WaaS is a cloud service developed for government entities to generate Secure, Scalable & Sugamya (Accessible) websites. It is multilingual, citizen-friendly and divyang friendly.

 

 

My  Take  :

 

Ø  Justice delayed is Justice Denied ……………………….[ 12 Sept 2018 ]

 

Extract :

 

If we want to reduce the average “case disposal time “ from 6 YEARS to 6 MONTHS , we must do better than the Chinese – as follows :

 

 

      Launch online portal…www.OnlineJustice.gov.in having following features / pages / User Interfaces :

 

 

#   Who can register a litigation and how ( detailed form to be filled in )

 

 

#   What kind of complaints can be filed ( Eg; property / divorce / fraud / loans etc )

 

 

#   Time frame of hearings ( based on backlog at that point )

 

 

#   Search / Selection of “ empanelled lawyers “ ( with their fees tariff )

 

 

#   Method of conducting “ Online Trial “ ( Audio – Video Conference calls )

 

 

#   Online payment of Court Fees / Lawyer’s fees

 

 

#   Who can “ watch “ the online trial and how ( Video broadcast ) and when

 

 

#   Progress Chart as trial proceeds / Upload – Download of documents

 

 

#   Court Room allotted ( by software ) to each litigation

 

 

     Not being limited by any “ Physical Constraints “ , it will be possible ( for the

 

     software ), to open as many “ Virtual / Online “ Court Rooms as required

 

 

     Only limitation will be the Number of available Judges at any given time

 

 

     And as far as finding 10,000 Judges to conduct “ Online Trials “ from the comfort of

                                                                                                          

     their homes ( and without imposing any “ Infrastructure Burden “ on the State –

 

     except providing them with a fast broadband connection ) , I suggest that we rope in

 

     retired judges on a “ Per Case Retainer “ basis ( paid into their Jan Dhan accounts )

 

 

 

       There must be a “ Bonus cum Penalty “ formula to govern the payments to the Judges ,

       depending upon the “ Actual Time “ taken to dispose off a given case as against the “

      Target Time “ ( to be computed by Artificial Intelligent Software , based on historical

      data being continuously compiled for all the cases , once the portal gets launched )

 

 

 

     I urge Chief Justice Hon Deepak Misraji to treat this email as a PIL and “ direct “ the

     NDA government to initiate action on this suggestion ( I cannot afford a lawyer ! )

 

 

     Your " Activism " in this matter will go a long way to restore the faith of the ordinary citizens in the

     judiciary  !

 

 

Ø  Supreme Proposes : Can e-Courts dispose ? …………………………….[ 28 Sept 2020 ]

 Extract :

So , what is the alternative ?

E Courts , is the only answer

With minimum infrastructure and time-loss, we can, easily set up, not just 100 but even 1,000 E-Courts , through launch of a portal { technology already commonplace }

On the same portal , 1,000 judges ( sitting in their homes ) can conduct trials , occupying 1,000 VIRTUAL COURTS

Complainants / Plaintiffs / Lawyers / Witnesses etc., too can log-on from their homes, into their RESPECTIVE / ASSIGNED , COURT-ROOMS [ Perfect Social Distancing ]

Finding 1,000 retired judges within ONE MONTH, cannot be a problem . They will be happy to work from 9 am to 6 pm ( with 30 minutes lunch-break )

I urge Shri Ravishankar Prasadji, to consider my suggestion

 

Ø  Thanks Supreme Court for hearing my PIL …………………………………….[ 26 Mar 2021 ]

 Extract :

The Supreme Court on Thursday in principle decided to resort  to the never used constitutional provision for engaging retired High Court judges to tackle the huge pendency in High Courts…

The CJI-led bench said since the retired judges would be given a specific tenure to adjudicate old cases and as they would be regarded as the junior-most in the hierarchy of the HC, it would not cause any heartburn among serving judges

Thank you, CJI for this is very welcome decision

      Ø  As against 5 lakh cases pending in High Courts, the total number pending, exceeds 300 lakhs ( 3 crore )

      Ø  The decision to re-appoint “ retired “ judges for OLD cases ( on specific TENURE basis ), needs to be coupled

         with starting of HUNDREDS of VIRTUAL COURTS ( e-Courts )

 

Ø  24x7 e-Courts ? ………………………………………………………….[ 14 Apr 2021 ]

Extract :

Ø    Limiting the registry’s role in prioritising cases, Phase 3 of the e-Courts project, currently in the draft stage, has   proposed a 24/7 digital window to litigants and lawyers to file file cases from  anywhere, anytime with the provision of scheduling   digital hearings in an  open court , ensuring  compliance  of  timelines  by both judges  and litigants.

      Ø  The next phase of judicial reforms envisages a complete transformation of Indian courts into digital

    platforms — having facilities of,

       #    e-Pay,

       #   e-Summons,

      #   e-Hearings

      #   e-Judgment ,

     #   litigants can appear remotely,

     #   schedule hearings at his / her convenience,  and

     #   an option of choosing alternative dispute resolution mechanism or a regular case while e-Filing.

 

      Ø  The court registry will be converted into a digital case registry where each case will be given a unique

           number that will help in locating the case as it moves from one level to another, without the need of

           re-filing of documents in case of appeal in higher courts.

 

=======================================================

With regards,

Hemen Parekh

hcp@RecruitGuru.com  /  30 Nov 2022