The Supreme Court of India’s e-committee has been overseeing the digital transformation of the justice system due to the lockdown imposed on the country by the coronavirus pandemic. As part of this, it puts out monthly newsletters for the media to know of its activities.
The e-committee has recently put out its October 2020 issue with up-to-date data on cases solved via virtual hearings, the video conferencing systems utilised in different courts and how many courts are yet to have some of these facilities. The e-committee has been putting out newsletters since May 2020 once the justice system had to shift to the internet with challans for starters and then the whole system. The e-committee is under the chairmanship of Justice D.Y. Chandrachud.
In the October issue, Chief Justice of India Sharad Arvind Bobde’s inauguration of India’s first-ever e-resource centre Nyay Kaushal gets the main display. The centre was inaugurated at the Judicial Officers Training Institute in Maharashtra’s Nagpur on October 31. Justice Chandrachud was virtually present at inauguration along with Justices B. R. Gavai, Dipankar Datta and other Judges of the Bombay High Court were physically present.
Nyay Kaushal will facilitate e-filing of cases in Supreme Court, any High court and district courts across the country. Recalling the situation, CJI Bobde said, “We tried to let the Supreme Court function in a restricted way but one walk around the Supreme Court building with my colleagues showed us that it was not possible.”
“We tried to let the SC function in a restricted way but realised it wasn’t possible to safely continue court in that way… The pandemic was something as if heaven fell,”
-the CJI said.
He recalled the Latin phrase, “Let justice be done though the heavens may fall.”
CJI Bobde praised the efforts by Supreme Court judges, Chief Justices and Judges of the High Courts and judges of the district courts and technical staff for continuing virtual hearings and managing to ensure that the courts functioned and that the rule of law was maintained.
“Technological dependence created an obvious distinction between those who could afford the technology and those who could not,” CJI Bobde said. He said this has created an unintended inequality.
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Inaugurating Nyay Kaushal, the CJI said some advocates suffered so much that they had to switch to selling vegetables. There were also reports that some people wanted to end their practice and some wanted to end their lives. He said the country must place an emphasis on making this technology available everywhere.
The October 2020 issue had more nuggets on the CJI inaugurating the virtual court at Katol in Maharashtra.