"SuSwagatam": Supreme Court launches online portal for visitors' pass to enter court; goodbye to long queues

The Supreme Court of India has launched a dedicated portal for visitors, litigants and journalists to get electronic passes to enter the top court's premises..The portal, named SuSwagatam, allows visitors, litigants, counsel, judicial law clerks, staff, parties-in-person and journalists to apply for electronic passes online. The earlier procedure involved standing in queues at the E-Sewa Kendra, to get paper passes before entry was allowed into the Court's premises. Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud announced the launch before beginning today's hearing in the Article 370 abrogation case."One can just make the pass an evening prior. The moment person comes to the security counter, the entire pass details reflected for CISF. We have called it SuSwagatam. The portal was tested as a pilot project from July 25. More than 10,000 e-passes issued till August 8 as a pilot basis. We also have a video tutorial on how to use it and we will have it soon in other languages than English. E-Seva Kendra will help in training," he said. Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta welcomed the move."It was a major concern. The entire nation will be grateful. We used to come at 9 AM so that we get a pass to enter by 10.30 AM. This was 12-13 years back," he said..As per a standard operating procedure (SOP) concerning the use of the portal by visitors/litigants, SuSwagatam aims to provide a seamless and straightforward process to get paperless e-passes to visit the Supreme Court for official or case-related purposes. "The platform offers advanced features aimed at eliminating the cumbersome and tedious procedures involved in making visit requests. The application is cloud-based software equipped with an easy-to-use graphical interface and robust security measures. It efficiently maintains all relevant visitor information, automatically saving it in a secure database. The primary objective of this document is to outline the workflow for the Visitor/Litigant role on the SuSwagatam portal and the associated processes," the SOP informed..Depending on the category of pass sought, there will be a dedicated dashboard with details of the E-Pass upon successful registration.The E-Pass can be valid for up to 30 days for counsel, journalists, law clerks and staff on applying for the same. .[Read visitors' SOP]