Supreme court judge justice Abhay Oka on Monday recommended all high courts to start using technology to rule out manual intervention and automate the listing of new cases.
He said that through the help of technology, we could bring transparency to our constitutional courts and their way of working. The more involvement of technology and internet access could abate the dependence over the manual method of dealing of cases. This will assist the members to deal with matters in an effective and on the speedy bases which further reduce the pendency of cases and leads to speedy judgments.
An event was organised by the interactive session of women advocates in association with Bombay bar association, advocates’ association of western India, and Bombay incorporated law society where Justice Oka delivered a lecture on ‘The Role of Technology in courts: Accessible justice, timely justice’ at the Bombay high court.
India’s first virtual court was launched in Faridabad in 2019. Until then, relatively little attempt has been made to convert traditional courts into virtual courts.
Justice Oka said that how significant change to virtual court has arisen due to COVID -19 pandemic and bring us thought about optimising the functioning of court and speedy delivering of the cases. he also shared his experience as the chief justice of Karnataka high court, used and adopted the technology during the pandemic.
Even Prime Minister, Narendra Modi addressed the role of technology in smooth delivering of justice. Access to the justice will become more-handy to the society, if use of technology is escalated. He said, “there cannot be a better time to introduce more power of technology to judicial proceedings, “the PM while addressing the inaugural session of the first all India district legal services authorities meet in Delhi.”
Justice RD Dhanuka of the Bombay high court in his address – ‘I am not fully familiar with computer and the technology. I’ll try my best to apply the technology in my next few months before my retirement.’
Kadam says that the bar will follow-up the issues opened by justice oka regarding automatic listing of cases in the board.
Kadam further said, “Network in Bombay HC is one of the important issues. Because of the building’s stones we don’t get network. 5G network is coming. We already requested the administration because in bar rooms also there is a big issue of network.”
Justice Oka also laid emphasis over modifying the court or turning into digital form and paperless courts, “We keep calling for record from the trial courts. After files are digitalized, We will get digital files,” he said.
Justice Oka concluded by emphasizing the importance of human element in the justice system. He said, “You have to remember that technology has all these advantages, but those the members of the legal fraternity will have to make extra efforts to improve the quality of justice rendered in our court”.
Written By: Ayushi Bhushan, Banasthali University
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