Summons by email, tagging of government departments and more: How the Karnataka High Court has gone high-tech

The Karnataka High Court has approved changes to rules under the Civil Procedure Code (CPC) with a view to facilitate timely responses, especially in government litigation. .After the rules were given the green signal by the Full Court, the Registrar General of the High Court will communicate the same to the State government, which in turn will notify these rules via gazette..The rules were proposed by the ad hoc Drafting Committee headed by Justice Krishna Dixit. Justices SG Pandit, R Devdas, Shyam Prasad, Sunil Dutt Yadav, M Nawaz, Narendra Prasad, Krishna Kumar, Ashok Kinagi, and Suraj Govindraj also served on the Committee..Among the most significant changes is the tagging of mobile numbers and email IDs of concerned government officers in the system so that they receive real time updates on cases. Given that the government is the biggest litigant before the courts, its departments are often burdened with the flow of information from courts. This tagging will aid in reducing response times, delays in comprehending the issue from panel advocates, and hasten other department-level communications.The idea of tagging of government department officers originated from the High Court, and the executive has agreed to implement it. Chief Secretary of the Karnataka government Vandita Sharma issued a circular and a mechanism for tagging cases and creating a Digital Case Diary to that effect. Principal Secretary E-Governance V Ponnuraj is also spearheading the government's effort. 650 government departments have registered with the High Court in the last month alone..Now that litigants have access to the email of the party to the suit, any response may be delivered promptly and without delay. Previously, determining the specific department and email address of the necessary official to send responses was a nightmare..The High Court will also issue summons via private courier firms and has already initiated the process of enrolling private couriers.It has also started preparing a process for serving summons through email, which is expected to significantly cut down delays in the process.