Justice DY Chandrachud inaugurates two Virtual Courts for ‘Traffic challans Captured via Cameras’ through Video Conference

Today, Supreme Court Judge and Chairman of e-Committee, Justice DY Chandrachud has inaugurated two virtual courts for ‘Traffic challans Captured via Cameras’ in Delhi.

The inauguration ceremony has been held virtually and was attended by Supreme Court Judges, namely Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Justice Sanjeev Khanna, Justice Ravindra Bhat and Chief Justice of Delhi High Court, Justice DN Patel along with members of the Delhi High Court’s Information Technology Committee, Chairman Justice Rajiv Shakdhar and Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva and Justice Prathiba M Singh and Justice Navin Chawla.

The first Virtual Court of this type has been placed last year.

Chief Justice DN Patel thus have called the new Virtual Courts as 'version 2.0'. He explained:

"The new software/update allowed a party to point out discrepancies in the footage captured by the traffic camera before the Court. Thus immediately the court will come to a conclusion and still if anybody wants to go to the court, the option is still open.. better option is given to the person who has violated."

He further went onto add that at present, 389 traffic camera were installed in the city and as that number increases, more virtual courts would be introduced. He termed it as an experiment that's going on and hoped that the initiative is helpful for the police as well as public.

Begining his inaugural address with praise for the judiciary to adopt technology, Supreme Court Judge, Justice Chandrachud deemed it to be a neccessary initiative. He said:

"The pandemic descended without any notice. It has given us an opportunity to place the technological infrastruture of the Indian judiciary on a robust basis. The question is not should we adopt technology. It is how can we adopt technology."

He informed that after the physical access to Courts was suspended due to COVID-19, as many as 17,000 Courts across India were converted into virtual courts.

He further added:

"Model Rules for Conduction of Virtual Hearings had been circulated among the High Courts. Key ingredient of the Rules is access to media and public. Right to know of public and media is crucial in a democracy."

Justice Chandrachud highlighted the fact that within 15 min of its inauguration, the virtual courts for traffic challan collected ₹95,000 as fines.

Explaining on the the system, he stated that it consist of an e-challan software, payment gateway and a court software.

He remarked:

"This virtual court has been able to liberate energies of 20 judicial officers, Justice Chandrachud remarked as he claimed that these officers can now devote their time to 'core judicial work.'"

He did pass on some suggestions in his address.

Claiming that the model can be adopted for summary cases and disposal of cases under Section 138 NI Act, Justice Chandrachud took the opportunity to apprise the audience of some of the initiatives that are presently under consideration.

He informed that a pilot project was being run to link all the institutions of criminal justice system for seamless collection of data pertaining to a case and that e-sewa kendra to reach out to the citizens would also be launched soon.

Justice Chandrachud concluding his address, recognized the contribution of former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court, Justice BD Ahmed and former Supreme Court Judge, Justice Lokur in adoption of technology tp the judiciary and making it a part of its functioning.