Karnataka - Bangalore

High Court judgments now on the Net

BANGALORE: Though cases are disposed of expeditiously in the Karnataka High Court, obtaining a copy of the judgment till now was a time-consuming process. The judgments were made available to the parties (either petitioner or respondent) only after they paid the prescribed fees. Obtaining a certified copy of a judgment took several weeks and there have been complaints by advocates and litigants against this time-consuming method.

All this has now become a thing of the past as the Karnataka High Court has taken yet another people-friendly measure to make its judgments accessible to all. The High Court has so far put on the Internet more than 8,000 judgments delivered since January 2008 by more than 40 judges. They are available on karnatakajudiciary.kar.nic.in

When the High Court initially tested the concept of posting judgments on the internet in 2007, it had uploaded 300 important judgments on the High Court website. Once the initial technical hitches were overcome and the server was upgraded, the High Court decided to make available online almost all judgments.

Almost all the judgments have been classified according to the court and case types, judges’ names, subjects and even judgment date. Searches can also be conducted by keying in the name of the petitioner or respondent or even connected cases (cases which are similar in nature). All the cases are in PDF format on the High Court website and many of these judgments had been reported in the Indian Law Reports (ILR).

Called the judgment information system, it is similar to the “judis” system developed and currently being used by the Supreme Court. Judgments delivered by the judges from January 2008 are now available on this exclusive site. Interestingly, several judgments of Justice Cyriac Joseph, the predecessor of the current Chief Justice P.D. Dinakaran, are also available on the Net.

With judgments now being put on the Net, clients need not approach their advocates or even the courts for a copy of the judgment or any information about their case. They can log in their case number or any other detail relating to their petition/appeal and obtain information on the status of their case.

The interactive voice recorder system (IVRS) has also been put into use by the High Court for helping people, particularly advocates and litigants, obtain details on the status of their case. Apart from the IVRS, advocates and litigants can obtain information on their cases by sending SMS to the High Court from their mobile phones. The mobile phones would have to be registered with the High Court.

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