June 27, 2017

Unless all the High Courts are digitises the Supreme Court digitisation remains a Theory.

Chief Justice of India J. S. Khehar's promise a 1 and a half month ago to make filing of appeals in the Apex Court "paperless" from 3rd July, when the court reopens after the summer vacation, will remain a promise.

On 10th May, the Chief Justice of India, in the presence of PM Narendra Modi in Vigyan Bhavan, said advocates'd be required to file only a few pages detailing the grounds of appeal against a HC judgment/order & the SC registry would pick up records of the case digitally from the High Court.

CJI J S Khehar had said, "Only grounds of appeal need to be filed in the Supreme Court. It'll save tonnes of paper used every year in filing the appeals & greatly help the environment. The system'll automatically through SMS & e-mail inform the litigant the court fee to be paid, the date of hearing & defects if any needing rectification. This'll also infuse transparency in listing of the cases for hearing. We'll gradually extend digitization through Integrated Court Management Information System (ICMIS) to the district courts level."

Justice Dipak Misra, who'll become Chief Justice of India in the last week of August said "posterity'll remember & history'll record" the Supreme Court's decision to go paperless by massive infusion of information technology in working of the courts.

"On reopening of the SC after the summer vacation, litigants'll feel the digital empowerment," he said.

The promises'll remain on paper as the Supreme Court registry won't be able to digitally pick up the case records from the High Courts, which're far from getting their case records digitized.

Without entire case records of the High Courts getting digitized & without a database link between the Supreme Court & High Courts, it'll not be possible for the Supreme Court to digitally draw case records from High Courts to supplement the grounds of appeal filed in the Supreme Courts.

Digitization of case records of the SC runs into a massive 3 crore pages & is expected to be complete by next year. It started during the tenure of Justice H. L. Dattu, who had entrusted the task to Justice Madan B. Lokur as head of the E-Committee.

This task is enormous, given that the court records occupy many big rooms in the space starved Supreme Court, & has already taken more than 2 years. Digitization of the records in the Supreme Court has resulted in emptying of files from 2 big rooms, which have been converted into a swanky advocates' lounge.

"If this is the time taken by the Supreme Court, which has much more resources, then one can imagine the time that'll be taken by High Courts to digitize their even more voluminous records," a Judge said.

Many Judges said thrusting digitization on judges, who're at fag end of their careers & who've handled physical files their entire lives, might actually slow their pace of work given their unfamiliarity in reading files on a computer.

"Will the advocates also use computers to argue their cases? If advocates continue to argue cases with the help of a paper-book appeal then why force dispensation on the Judges?" asked another judge.

with inputs from TOI.

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