New Delhi: Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud said on Wednesday the Supreme Court has heard over 7,50,000 cases via video-conferencing and more than 1,50,000 cases were filed online as technology has re-negotiated the relationship between law and enforcement agencies, including the judiciary.
Addressing the J20 Summit at Rio de Janeiro on ‘Digital transformation and the use of technology to enhance judicial efficiency’, the CJI referred to India’s achievements and said, “Virtual hearings have democratised access to the Supreme Court.” J20 is a summit of the heads of supreme courts or the constitutional courts of G20 member states and is being organised by the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court in light of Brazil’s Presidency of G20 this year.
The CJI said the Indian Supreme Court’s Case Management System has been developed on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), and is “the largest case management system in the world”. Justice Chandrachud also said that even after the pandemic, hybrid hearings continue to be a feature of Indian courts, and the virtual hearings have opened up the space for people who face difficulties in physically appearing before the courts. “Over 7,50,000 cases have been heard over video-conferencing. The proceedings of important constitutional cases in the Supreme Court are live-streamed on its YouTube channel -- bringing constitutional deliberations to the homes and hearts of all citizens. The Supreme Court of India today is almost entirely paperless, with digitised and optical character recognition-enabled paper-books,” he said.
“Judges are after all perhaps the only public functionaries who are perched on a raised platform, who punish for contempt and make important decisions about the lives of others in discrete private chambers, without the fear of electoral losses,” Chandrachud said. “Over 36,000 cases have thus far been translated. There is also live-streaming and YouTube recordings of important constitutional cases that provide the complete context. Easy access to the judgments of the Supreme Court is provided for through Digital SCR (Supreme Court Records), where over 30,000 old judgements are available for free,” the CJI said.
Chandrachud said there are two crucial areas in which digitisation and technology can help the judiciary create better justice delivery mechanisms. The first is streamlining of the pre-decision processes and the other is the post-decision measures that improve access to and engagement with the decision itself.