Technology in Indian courts

technology in indian courts Dr. K.S. Jayachandran

Deputy Secretary

Department of Justice

Ministry of Law and Justice

Government of India

22 May, 2017

Presented during conference on ‘Disruptive Innovation in Legal Services - The Judges Forum’ at Deakin University, Melbourne

the leftovers

outline

1. International benchmarks 2. Pace of digitisation in India 3. What next?

4. Other initiatives of Department of Justice

Benchmarks ■ Singapore

■ Luxemborg

■ Iceland

■ South Korea

■ Austria

Singapore 1990

■ began court automation in .

– All the features of eCourts Project of India.

– e-Litigation in its Supreme Court, whereby lawyers can access court files and file documents online.

Luxembourg 1985, called

■ started computerising courts and public prosecutor’s office in ‘criminal chain’.

– Computerisation in civil and administrative matters started in 1998 – but is used in-house by Judges only.

Iceland â– promoted major increases in productivity in the court system and a substantial shortening of case handling time since access to courts.

1992, with concomitantly better

South Korea computerized Case Management System in in 2010.

1986 and electronic filing system

Austria 1986

â– judicial automation application in and re-designed and improved it further in late 1990s inter alia to enable internet access of data.

and India â– 2010 â– All top performing countries commenced computerisation of courts decades before India.

India has reached almost the same level of computerisation

Benefits have started to accrue to the citizens now.

2. Pace of digitisation in India â– indicators

Increase in number of computerised courts: â– The number of computerised courts in the country in February, 2014 was 13227

â– 16,934 computerised courts now.

Successful roll out of National Judicial Data Grid: â– National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) portal was opened for public access in September, 2015.

â– As of now, National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) has 7 crores pending and disposed cases and more than 4 crore orders/ judgments.

benefits of NJDG ■ Policy Inputs ■ Transparency ■ Litigant Charter ■ Judicial Management and Monitoring

Record number of electronic transactions for eCourts: ■ As on Jan, 2014, there were around 2 crore electronic transactions

■ Touched more than 66 crores of electronic transactions in 2017.

■ eCourts transactions: one of the topmost accessed services of the government

Roll out of eCourt services: ■ The services such as SMS and case disposal were started in 2014.

■ As on date, the portal has recorded more than 7.23 crore auto-generated SMSs sent to lawyers and judges.

■ During the period, number of court orders accessed has increased from a mere 64 to 3.56 crores.

■ During 2016, 63 lakh SMSs auto-generated through the system have been sent to the litigants and lawyers.

■ The facility was started in Jan, 2015.

Operationalisation of video conferencing facilities â– No video conferencing facility under the project till 2014.

â– Now been operationalised between 500 courts and corresponding prisons during 2015 -2017.

Improvement in India’s rank under the “Enforcing Contracts” indicator in Doing Business Report 2017:

■ India has been ranked 172nd in this report against 178th in 2016 under the “Enforcing Contracts” indicator.

– efiling – electronic process service – electronic case management

â– What next ?

ICJS ■ Interoperable Criminal Justice System

■ Eventual integration of eCourts

■ Integrate the courts, police stations, prosecution, forensic science laboratories and Jails.

Other initiatives

Socio legal cells ■ With Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

■ Reach children in conflict with law and also those in need of care and protection through counselling and guidance sessions, legal advice, legal aid, rehabilitation support and legal awareness to the children and their families.

■ Training and sensitization of the Special Juvenile Police Unit

■ Assisting Juvenile Justice Boards

Access to Justice for tribal communities: ■ Enabled poor, tribal communities to secure land rights and access entitlements under government schemes.

■ Forest Rights Committees under Forest Rights Act were formed and made functional.

■ Securing livelihood and furthering conservation practices

■ Villages got community rights to conserve, regenerate and manage Forest Land under FRA and People’s Biodiversity Registers were made for ensuring livelihood support for the people.

Mainstreaming Legal Aid through

Common Service Centre: ■ Paralegal Volunteers

connect a marginalized person seeking legal advice with a trained lawyer sitting in a district head quarter or State capital through video conferencing.

■ Reaching populations which remained untouched due to geographical challenges.

■ Experimental mode at 1000 CSCs.

■ If successful, it will be scaled up throughout the country in all the CSCs in a phased manner.

District Facilitation Centers & Friend of Justice 
 for facilitating access to justice in courts:

â– Facilitating litigants whose cases have been pending for a long time

– due to lack of coordination between the litigants and various agencies like police and forensic laboratories, health institutions and public utility providers.

District Facilitation Centers & Friend of Justice for facilitating access to justice in courts:

■ Headed by one Nyaya Mitra (Friend of Justice).

– Assist litigants in getting cases resolved early by liaising with State agencies.

– Improving access to justice for weaker sections of society through legal aid and legal empowerment initiatives – Facilitate/support the resolution of grievances received from the Department of Justice.

Pro bono Lawyering: â– An application in our website for interested lawyers to enroll and participate in pro bono lawyering.

â– To create a database of lawyers willing to provide their services to litigants of specified categories.

Key Takeaways from today

Key Takeaways from today ■ ■ ■ ■

eTrial

Counsel led evidence

Computation Law

Online dispute resolution

Concerns ■Privacy issues

■Digital Divide

Thank you