The Hindu : Electronic courts in SC soon

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 02, 2002

National

National

Electronic courts in SC soon

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD July 1. E lectronic courts will come into being in the Supreme Court by August-September this year. The Chief Justice of India, B. N. Kirpal, who had mooted the idea of e-courts in the Supreme Court at a symposium in Bangalore sometime ago, said here today that three IT firms, NIIT, Microsoft and Wipro had submitted project reports. These were being processed and the e-courts would start in the next few months.

The e-courts would facilitate the filing of applications and even arguments through the electronic mode. "There will be no need for establishing Supreme Court Benches once we take advantage of information technology'', he said.

He was laying the foundation for the Centres for Environmental Studies and the IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) Studies at the NALSAR University of Law in the presence of the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, the Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, A. R. Lakshmanan, and others here on Monday. The Supreme Court Judge, Justice U. C. Banerjee, who is the founder president of NALSAR, has donated funds for the two centres.

Mr. Justice Kirpal announced that each Supreme Court judge would have a law clerk with immediate effect drawn from the National Law School, Bangalore. They would be paid a monthly honorarium of Rs. 7,000 and have tenure of one year, extendable by one more year. The funds would be generated from the Supreme Court's budget. The NALSAR University and other premier law institutes would be asked to send their students from next year onwards.

Sharing what he called some "wild thoughts'', he stressed the need for policy changes to clear the huge pendency of cases in courts. He mooted the idea of further activating Lok Adalats to dispose of five to ten-year-old cases by allowing them to function in the court buildings from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. daily.

He said it was all very well to appoint more judges to tackle the problem but some `practical steps' were needed to meet challenge. He said the United States dealt with the problem of increasing litigation through the jury system.

"Where is the need for judges to decide questions of facts which clutter up our courts? Can't we have a system where ordinary people decide cases and bring litigation to an end? Let the courts decide matters of law and leave questions of fact, such as those arising in rent control cases, to be decided by the Lok Adalats'', he said.

Mr. Chandrababu Naidu, in his address, said there was no difference of opinion among the political parties on the need for economic reforms to survive in a competitive world. But what was needed was the improvement of human resources by building institutions of excellence.

Equally important was the need for good governance and upgrading of skills through capacity building in areas such as information technology, business management and law. "The journey of good governance could be smooth only if the road called `rule of law' is well-laid."

Mr. Naidu welcomed the introduction of IPR Studies.

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