Faltering steps into cyberland

Current signals indicate there is a long way to vaunted paperless courts

The announcement of the Supreme Court two months ago that it would go paperless from this month wowed everyone. Later the court clarified that in implementing the ambitious plan there are several “technical and functional issues”. These have popped up in myriad forms over the weeks when the court reopened after the summer vacation. To begin with, only new petitions which come up before five out of 14 courts would be accessed by the judges digitally on an interactive display device. So the judges are still partly eclipsed by the stack of paper piles on either side of them. The display devices are on their table, but kept away for the time being. So far no e-petition seems to have come up before the courts.

Since the Supreme Court deals with hundreds of appeals, the records of the courts below also have to be digitalised. This is a tremendous task since the courts below are ill-equipped to answer the call. Therefore, bundles of paper are still brought to the filing counter with records from the district courts onwards. E-filing from anywhere in the country is yet a distant prospect.

Though the setting up of the Integrated Case Management Information System (ICMIS) was announced on May 10 as a revolutionary step, the new website of the court is still under construction and is causing hiccups for the users. The good old website was scrapped before the new one was put in place, causing unnecessary confusion.

This is not the first time the court is declaring the tantalising arrival of the digital age. In October 2006, it was announced that e-filing has been introduced. But over the decade, the paper mounds have only grown bigger, spilling over to the corridors occupying half the walking area. The court has taken over much of the former Pragati Maidan hectares nearby, while the space should be shrinking if e-courts are the future. In advanced countries, the cyber wave is cutting into legal business, with computers doing to lawyers what machines did to horses; but no one need to worry here.

Though there is an apex e-committee to give directions to the courts below, the electronic progress of high courts and courts below is despairing. Except a few high courts among the 24, the websites are little helpful except to the lawyers. Several social and economic issues of national importance are heard and decided by high courts in their respective jurisdiction. Their wisdom is lost to the public as it is not accessible.

For instance, the Gujarat high court last fortnight passed a long judgment followed by drastic orders, discussing the problem of witnesses turning hostile in sensitive cases. The court described the saga of 105 out of 195 witnesses turning hostile when a former MP was accused of murder of a youth. The 120-page judgment is unknown to the public because it is difficult to trace it for an ordinary person. The judges there mark whether their judgments uploaded on the website should be shown to the local newspaper reporters. Successive judges for years have not noticed the irony of it all. The court also warns the users against relying on the authenticity of the judgments read on the website.

There are several other high court websites which are unhelpful to the public as they follow their own designs. Since only the local lawyers have the clue to enter them by keying in a dozen choices, the clients have to pay for it. The rest of the world is practically shut out from the judgments of the high courts, however important they may be. The e-committee has failed to tell the National Informatics Centre which devises the websites to follow a uniform pattern for all courts. Even the dozens of tribunals, some of whom have not updated their sites for months together, must follow one pattern. These are basic needs of society which is increasingly realising the power of courts and utilising it as the other arms of state are failing in their constitutional roles.