Context :
Prime Minister
Narendra Modi on Saturday launched various new initiatives under the e-court project on the occasion of Constitution Day in the national capital.
The initiatives launched by the Prime Minister
include Virtual Justice Clock, JustIS mobile App
2.0, Digital court and S3WaaS
Websites.
The Project is an
effort to provide services to litigants, lawyers and the judiciary through ICT
enablement of courts.
"Virtual Justice Clock is an initiative to exhibit vital
statistics of the justice delivery system at the Court level giving the details
of :
# the cases instituted,
# cases disposed and
# pendency of cases on a day/week/month
basis , at the Court level.
The
effort is to make the functioning of the courts accountable and transparent by sharing with the public
the status of case disposals by the court.
The public can access
the Virtual Justice Clock
of any court establishment on the District Court's website," read the
statement.
JustIS Mobile App 2.0 is a tool
available to judicial officers for effective court and case management by
monitoring the pendency and disposal of not only his court but
also individual judges working under them.
This App is also made
available to High Court and Supreme Court Judges who can now monitor the pendency and disposal of all the States and Districts under their
jurisdiction
S3WaaS Website is a framework to:
# generate,
# configure,
# deploy and
# manage websites
for publishing
specified information and services related to district judiciary. S3WaaS is a
cloud service developed for government entities to generate Secure, Scalable
& Sugamya (Accessible) websites. It is multilingual, citizen-friendly and
divyang friendly.
My Take :
Ø Justice
delayed is Justice Denied ……………………….[ 12 Sept 2018 ]
Extract :
If we want to reduce the average
“case disposal time “ from 6 YEARS to 6 MONTHS , we must do better than the
Chinese – as follows :
Launch
online portal…www.OnlineJustice.gov.in having following features
/ pages / User Interfaces :
# Who can register a litigation and how (
detailed form to be filled in )
# What kind of complaints can be filed (
Eg; property / divorce / fraud / loans etc )
# Time frame of hearings ( based on backlog at
that point )
# Search / Selection of “ empanelled lawyers “ ( with
their fees tariff )
# Method of conducting “ Online Trial “ ( Audio – Video Conference calls )
# Online payment of Court Fees / Lawyer’s fees
# Who can “ watch “ the online trial and how ( Video
broadcast ) and when
# Progress Chart as trial proceeds / Upload – Download
of documents
# Court Room allotted ( by software ) to
each litigation
Not
being limited by any “ Physical Constraints “ , it will be possible ( for the
software
), to open as many “ Virtual
/ Online “ Court Rooms as required
Only
limitation will be the Number of available Judges at any given time
And as far as finding 10,000 Judges to conduct “ Online Trials “ from
the comfort of
their homes
( and without imposing any “
Infrastructure Burden “ on the State –
except
providing them with a fast broadband connection ) , I suggest that we rope in
retired judges on a “ Per
Case Retainer “ basis ( paid into their Jan Dhan accounts )
There
must be a “ Bonus cum Penalty “ formula to govern the payments to
the Judges ,
depending
upon the “ Actual Time
“ taken to dispose off a given case as against the “
Target Time “ ( to be
computed by Artificial Intelligent Software , based on historical
data
being continuously compiled for all the cases , once the portal gets launched )
I
urge Chief Justice Hon Deepak Misraji to treat this email as a PIL and “ direct
“ the
NDA
government to initiate action on this suggestion ( I cannot afford a lawyer ! )
Your " Activism " in this matter will go a long way to restore
the faith of the ordinary citizens in the
judiciary !
Ø Supreme
Proposes : Can e-Courts dispose ? ………………[ 28 Sept 2020 ]
Extract :
So , what is the alternative ?
E Courts , is the only answer
With minimum
infrastructure and time-loss, we can, easily set up, not just 100 but
even 1,000 E-Courts , through
launch of a portal { technology already
commonplace }
On the same portal
, 1,000 judges ( sitting in their homes ) can conduct trials , occupying 1,000 VIRTUAL COURTS
Complainants /
Plaintiffs / Lawyers / Witnesses etc., too can log-on from their homes, into
their RESPECTIVE / ASSIGNED , COURT-ROOMS [ Perfect Social Distancing ]
Finding 1,000
retired judges within ONE MONTH, cannot be a problem . They will be happy to
work from 9 am to 6 pm ( with 30 minutes lunch-break )
I urge Shri Ravishankar Prasadji, to consider my
suggestion
Ø Thanks
Supreme Court for hearing my PIL …………………….[ 26 Mar 2021 ]
Extract :
The Supreme Court on Thursday in principle decided to resort to
the never used constitutional provision for engaging retired High Court judges to tackle the huge pendency in High Courts…
The CJI-led bench said since the retired judges would be given a specific tenure to adjudicate old cases and as
they would be regarded as the junior-most in the hierarchy of the HC, it would
not cause any heartburn among serving judges
Thank
you, CJI for this is very welcome decision
Ø As
against 5 lakh cases pending in High Courts, the total number
pending, exceeds 300 lakhs ( 3 crore )
Ø The
decision to re-appoint “ retired “
judges for OLD cases ( on specific TENURE basis ), needs to be coupled
with
starting of HUNDREDS of VIRTUAL COURTS ( e-Courts )
Ø 24x7
e-Courts ? ………………………………………………………….[ 14 Apr 2021 ]
Extract :
Ø Limiting the registry’s role in prioritising
cases, Phase 3 of the e-Courts project, currently in the draft stage,
has proposed a 24/7 digital
window to litigants and lawyers to file file cases from anywhere, anytime with
the provision of scheduling digital
hearings in an open court ,
ensuring compliance of timelines by
both judges and litigants.
Ø The
next phase of judicial reforms envisages a complete
transformation of Indian courts into digital
# e-Pay,
# e-Summons,
# e-Hearings
# e-Judgment ,
# litigants can appear remotely,
# schedule hearings at his / her
convenience, and
# an option of choosing alternative
dispute resolution mechanism or
a regular case while e-Filing.
Ø The court registry will be converted into a digital case registry
where each case will be given a unique
number that will help in locating the case as it
moves from one level to another, without the need of
re-filing of documents in case of appeal in higher courts.
===================================================
With regards,
Hemen Parekh
hcp@RecruitGuru.com / 30
Nov 2022