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Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud on Thursday revealed that some State High Courts still consider video conference hearings an indulgence and not a step forward by modern judiciary to provide access to justice for all.
“Some High Courts want an advance notice of 48 hours for providing video conferencing links (to lawyers and litigants). Some have said you can get a VC link only if you are above the age of 60… The links should be in the causelist. Why should anyone be made to apply two days in advance or be above the age of 60 for video conferencing links,” Chief Justice Chandrachud said in open court at the beginning of a nine-judge Constitution Bench hearing.
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The Chief Justice said ₹850 crore was spent between November 2023 and March 31, 2024 for creating infrastructure for High Courts and the district court judiciary.
“High Courts spent 94% of that amount. Hopefully, now the infrastructure in the High Courts would really be upgraded,” the CJI said.
He said the money was part of ₹7,000 crore allocated to the judiciary for the third phase of its e-courts project.
The CJI said virtual hearings and video conferencing (VC) would help chronic delays plaguing criminal trials.
“Trials need not be adjourned because the investigating officer is posted elsewhere. We are looking at enhanced VC in district courts, in jails, forensic science labs, hospitals where medical evidence has to be given. Why does the doctor have to come to court to prove a dying declaration? Imagine what a loss of productive medical time” the Chief Justice pointed out.
The Chief Justice said the High Courts were no longer dependent on the States for allocation of funds. Some of these States do not even spare a farthing for the purpose.
“The money goes from the Government of India to the Supreme Court e-committee to the High Courts… Now there is no question of money not being allocated by States,” Chief Justice Chandrachud said.
“There is a direction from the Prime Minister to give first priority to digitisation in order to provide access to justice for all,” Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, present in court, intervened.
He said the new Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 permitted deposition given electronically as valid, admissible evidence.
The Supreme Court has launched a WhatsApp Messenger service through which has been integrated with the IT services of the court. The CJI said lawyers would now receive automated messages of causelists, electronic filings, etc, on their mobile phones.
Chief Justice Chandrachud said the Supreme Court was also migrating to a cloud infrastructure called the ‘Meghraj Cloud 2.0’ created by the National Informatics Centre.
“We have migrated most of the applications of the Supreme Court and also the e-courts project. With cloud infrastructure now, all courts can go online. These are managed services. There is no need for a building or a team of technical personnel. The data is preserved in servers in India. No question of data going outside the country,” the CJI explained.
