ICJS to be first launched in Telangana and AP

Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are the first states in the country where Integrated Criminal Justice System (ICJS) will be launched, Supreme Court Judge Madan B Lokur said today.
"Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have made lot of progress and that is one of the reasons we have decided that the ICJS is going to be launched in both the states," he said.
Justice Lokur, who is also the judge incharge of SC's e-committee, was speaking after inaugurating the first e-court (paperless court) in the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad for the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
"This system is going to integrate the courts, police stations, prosecution, forensic science laboratories and Jails. We will work out the modalities... A meeting is scheduled on July 28. I am happy to say that Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are the first two states in the country that have been chosen for the ICJS project," he said.

Justice P Naveen Rao, one of the members of the computer committee of the high court, will preside over the e-court from tomorrow.
"I was very impressed with the e-court today and during this coming week, I am going to try and introduce it in Supreme Court as well," Justice Lokur said.

"We are also looking at 'case management' and once we are able to introduce it successfully, the movement of cases will be very much faster and justice will be far more expeditious than it is at the present moment," he said.
He said the judicial officers need to get involved.

"I request the leaders of the Bar Association so that we will be able to have vastly improved 'case management system' to provide speedy justice to litigants," he said.
On the video conferencing system, Justice Lokur said a study was done in Maharashtra which found that crores of rupees were saved through the use of video conferencing.
"Apart from financial saving, a large number of police personnel are deployed for transporting undertrials from jails to courts," he said.
"We are now in the process of computerising the high courts, though substantial progress has been done, but we are trying to bring about some kind of uniformity between the data that is available in all the high courts," he said.

"If the judiciary, lawyers, litigants and court staff work together we can bring about a massive change in justice delivery and access to justice," he further said.