Attorney General KK Venugopal, while speaking at the launch of a district-level awareness program in regional languages on e-court services by the Supreme Court e-committee, commended the legal fraternity for adopting e-filling of cases and hearing through video conferencing in such challenging times. He was hopeful that in the next one year the whole country will be familiar with e-courts.
He suggested that video streaming of proceedings would help in judging the capacity of judges and lawyers and the nature of cases which are being handled in courts including lower courts, district courts, high courts and the Supreme Court.
“I never believed that we could have progressed to this extent. Now I am optimistic that in due course, all courts in the country will be e-courts. I am sure that in the next one year, the whole of this country will be familiar with e-courts. We should congratulate the e-committee for what they have achieved,” Mr. Venugopal said at the inaugural function held via video conference on July 25.
He praised the Supreme Court e-committee for working tremendously after the COVID-19 induced lockdown. They have tackled various challenges that came along the way of introduction and operationalization of e-filing replacing physical filing of cases across the country.
The e-committee is headed by Justice DY Chandrachud. It is in the process of digitization of records in the High Court and District Court as well. To narrow down the technological divide between the metropolitan city and rural areas they have released a training manual, video tutorials and brochures in 11 regional languages with regard to e-court services which include Assamese, Bengali, Nepali, Urdu, Mizo, Tamil, Hindi, Hindi-UP, Garo, Khasi, and Pnar. Brochures, which would assist lawyers to familiarize themselves with e-filing, were released in 14 regional languages.
As part of the first stage of the awareness program, the e-committee trained 25 master trainers on 20 June through video conferencing – one for each high court in the country. In the second stage, the 25 master trainers, in turn, trained 461master trainers across the country in their respective states and respective regional languages through video conference. In the third phase, these 461 master trainers will be conducting the training program in every district of the country for the advocates. 278 of these 461 master trainers will be covering two districts each so that all 739 districts in the country are covered.
Justice Chandrachud stated that the mission of the digitalization of courts will not succeed until and unless lawyers at taluka and district level are part of the project. The target of the project is to achieve a hundred percent computer literacy among Indian Bar.
This News has been written and submitted by Ms. Agrima during her course of internship at B&B Associates LLP. Ms. Agrima is a third-year law student at Hidayatullah National Law University, Naya Raipur, Chhattisgarh.
