E-prison module for dist courts to be ready by Jan, DSLSA tells HC

new delhi: The Delhi High Court was informed by DSLSA on Wednesday that the e-prison module for streamlining communication between courts and jails, like delivery of remand and bail orders and warrants, will be implemented in district courts here by January 2021.

Delhi State Legal Service Authority (DSLSA) told a bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad that as a pilot run, the module is being implemented in three courts — Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (central) and two Metropolitan Magistrates (central).

DSLSA counsel Sumer Sethi submitted that on October 13, a meeting headed by Centralized Computer Committee chairman was held with DLSA member secretary, several judicial officers and NIC officials.

He said the e-prison module will be implemented in magisterial courts across the city by November 30 and in all other Delhi district courts having criminal jurisdiction by January 15, 2021.

The bench asked the Principal District and Sessions Judge (Headquarters) to file a compliance report and listed the matter for further hearing on January 28.

It also asked DG (Prisons), represented through standing counsel Rahul Mehra and advocate Chaitanya Gosain, to file a report placing on record the manner in which modified production warrants have helped jail authorities in releasing prisoners and any ambiguity shall also be mentioned in it.

The submissions were made in pursuance of the high court's October 8 order by which DSLSA member secretary Kanwaljeet Arora was asked to approach the Principal District and Sessions Judge (HQ), Tis Hazari, for clarification as to the timeline within which the module will be made functional.

The bench was earlier informed by the district judge, in a status report, that the Centralised Computer Committee in collaboration with the NIC, Delhi and the jail authorities has been working on an e-Prison Module for streamlining the communication between courts and jail authorities including the delivery of remand orders, bail orders, production warrants, release warrants or any other communication.

The jail authorities had raised the issue that the courts while issuing the production warrants are not making endorsements specifying to the effect that whether the prisoner is in custody or on bail in the particular FIR.

To this, the district judge had found as appropriate the solution given by DSLSA that all judicial officers must clearly mention on the custody warrant itself that whether a particular accused is in custody in the specified FIR for which he was produced before the court or on bail.

The court was hearing a matter related to the unlawful detention of a person in prison for a period of six days.