The Judiciary is one of the most important pillars of a democratic society. India, like the United States and other democracies over the world, practices a traditional open court system for its judicial proceedings. Article 145(4) of the Constitution states that all orders have to be pronounced in an open court. The Open court principle implies that the proceedings of the court are available to every person to watch. In simple words, an open court proceeding is when the litigant, judge, defendant, lawyer and every related party is physically present in the court room for proceedings and the proceedings are open for every person to witness. Documentation, payment of fees, submission of evidence, filings etc, were all manual processes as a normal course of business before the COVID19 pandemic which, has hit the legal framework of every country including India in a different way.
What is the Future of Judiciary?
The traditional system of an open court proceeding went for a toss when a nationwide lockdown was announced on March 24, 2020. The courts across the nation restricted the entry to court rooms and limited the proceedings to urgent matters only. Even before the declaration of the nationwide lockdown, the Supreme Court of India had already announced suspension of its normal working via a circular dated March 13, 2020 directing that “the functioning of the court shall be restricted to urgent matters with such number of benches as may be found appropriate” thereby virtually shutting down the courts. On March 16, 2020 it was Justice Sharad Bobde, who took the bold decision that justice was not to be kept on hold and virtual courts had to begin functioning. The Bombay High Court was quick off the mark to hear a matter by videoconferencing. Thereafter, the Supreme Court and other courts have heard several matters. The data from the National Judicial Data Grid website reveals that 3,049 civil cases and 90,742 criminal cases have been instituted during the period of pandemic, whereas, 832 and 40095 civil and criminal cases have been disposed of respectively. The infrastructure providing a video conferencing facility between jails and courts and covering about 840 locations was developed and put into practice. Parallelly, 14249 courtrooms sights were prepared for hardware and software installations. The overnight shifting from open courts to virtual or e-courts was possible only because there was a robust infrastructure available in place, said Justice D Y Chandrachud, judge of Supreme Court of India. The current scenario of the judiciary is a lot more different compared to the picture two months ago.
Acknowledging the fact that the Covid19 virus will live with us for a while and with new norms like social distancing and lesser human contact, it can be assumed that the future of our legal system will be technologically advanced. As informed by the judges of Supreme Courts on various platforms, change is the need and measure of time and a ‘Robust TechEnabled Indian Judiciary’ is an unavoidable change. Supreme Court Judge, Justice D Y Chandrachud, said “What I preserve for the future is a healthy mix between the use of technology for court hearings in areas where we believe technology is well suited; along with open court hearings as well, which constitutes the spine of our system”. He also said “access of public to a public court room, must be preserved in the form of video-conference. All recourse to video conferencing must be available to public access”, stressing on the concept of open courts to remain relevant even in virtual courts. The Supreme Court of India, under chairmanship of Justice D Y Chandrachud, had established an E-Committee in March’ 16 with an aim to aid judiciary with technology, with a view that technology is an adjunct to the rule of law. The E-committee is motivated to focus on two major changes namely E-filing and Video conferencing.
With 52% of nation’s population having access to internet currently with an expected rise of 600 million users by 2021, e-filing and video conferencing can be the easiest and fastest route to seek justice by the common man. The pilot of e-court is already successful and is used in Delhi for petty traffic cases since July’19, where the defaulter can pay his fine and seek redressal through a digital platform. In China, cases of petty defaults are resolved within no time with the help of artificial intelligence. It is no wrong to say that technology will be a intrinsic element for rule of law and can enhance the access to justice for common citizens.
Technology, even as an aid to jurisdiction, has its own limitation. It can be an intrinsic element for rule of law only when the confidence of Bar and every segment of the society is involved with the idea of technology in judiciary. Mere replacement of thousands and lakhs of registers and manual data with automated systems is not judiciary. It includes process automation, ways to reduce the processes taking place not just in front office like courts, but also at the back end offices of the registrars. The true potential of Indian judiciary has to be considered.
I want to dissuade people from the idea that virtual court hearings are some sort of panacea or a formula, which is a substitute for open court hearings. We had no choice in the pandemic, but to resort to hearing via video conferencing. They will not be able to replace physical court hearings.
Justice D Y Chandrachud
Justice is not a sovereign function, but a service to community and that cannot be completely replaced, but only be aided by technology.
Also Read: COVID19 Notable Judgements
