Even though the Coronavirus pandemic brought the country to a standstill, the wheels of justice kept rolling digitally as various High Courts and lower courts in the country dealt with more than 1.38 crore cases through video conference facility from March 2020 to August 2021.

According to the August 2021 newsletter issued by the E-committee of the Supreme Court of India, while the 25 High Courts dealt with 48,60,500 cases since the start of the pandemic till August, the district courts handled 89,57,395 cases.

The data also revealed that Delhi’s courts were the most occupied as it dealt with 17% of all the cases followed by Allahabad (13.8%) and Patna (9.86).

The report also showed that E-Sewa Kendras are functional in 22 High Courts while it is still not functional 5 High Courts - Calcutta, Jammu & Kashmir, Manipur, Telangana and Uttarakhand. When it comes to district courts, 8 States are yet to implement E-sewa kendras.

Rules governing video conference hearings have been implemented in 21 High Courts while 6 High Courts including Bombay, Calcutta, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab & Haryana are yet to enforce the same.

E-payments have been implemented in 22 High Courts.

The data however, also highlighted the slow progress of the implementation of E-filing rules, systems and overall infrastructural facilities which are critical to functioning of a digital court.

E-filing rules have been implemented only in 11 States while 16 States are yet to implement the same.

The inter-operable criminal justice system (ICJS) is yet to be implemented in seven High Courts. The E-committee had said that the ICJS is an initiative that will allow seamless transfer of data and information among different pillars of the criminal justice system like courts, police, jails and forensic science.

“With the aid of the ICJS platform, the metadata of FIR and charge sheet can be accessed by all the High Courts and subordinate courts. Documents like FIR, case diary and charge sheet are uploaded by police in PDF format for utilization by the courts,” the committee had said.

The National Service and Tracking of Electronic Processes (NSTEP) is yet to start in 11 High Courts. The E-committee had said that NSTEP will accelerate the process of service and would make it more transparent by eliminating frequently raised allegations on the process servers.

[Read Newsletter]