[ad_1]
The sudden outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic forced the Supreme Court to resort to the virtual court hearings to ensure the safety of attorneys, litigants and staff of the media, judge of the Supreme Court of justice DY Chandrachud said Sunday.
But the virtual court hearings will not replace or substitute for the physics of the courts, the justice Chandrachud made it clear at a seminar organized by Nyaya Forum of the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research, Hyderabad on the topic “the Future of Virtual Courts and Access to Justice in India’.
“I want to dissuade people of the idea that virtual court hearings are a kind of panacea. You will not be able to replace the physics of the hearings of the court. We had to resort to virtual court hearings because Covid-19 went down without notice and we had no other option. We had to protect those who come to the court, lawyers, litigants, media personnel, para-legal, interns,” he said.
The Supreme Court, which is under complete shutdown due to the Coronavirus threat, has been hearing only extremely urgent cases from March 23 through video conferencing without the personal presence of the lawyers.
The superior court had issued a circular on March 23, the suspension of the entry of the lawyers and litigants at the court premises and the requirement that only extremely urgent cases will be taken by the hearing via video conference during the lockout period.
The videoconference is to be conducted by the court through ‘Vidyo app’ that can be downloaded on mobile phones and desktop.
In the use of technology in the courts, justice Chandrachud said that the technology is inseparable complement of the rule of law and will have to be employed as a critical element in the cut out design. But it must be inclusive and replace the procedures of the court in manageable chunks, he added.
“Our procedures of the court late and unintelligible to the common people,” justice Chandrachud said.
Justice Chandrachud, who is also the president of the commission to the Supreme Court, said that the digitalisation of the courts including e-filing should be standardized throughout the country.
The presentation of cases in the Supreme Court is about to undergo a radical change with the introduction of the new e-filing module in the near future. The module provides customized information to each lawyer in the Registry of the cases that have been presented by their own causelist of the cases, the details of the arguments presented by them and the arguments presented by other persons in the cases in which they appear.
The service will be available twenty-four hours a day, which would mean that a lawyer can present a case at any time of day and any day, regardless of whether the registration is working or not.
“We, as judges, have a vital role to ensure that the younger members of the Bar are trained and we have to do it with the hand that holds us to ourselves”, justice Chandrachud said.
.
[ad_2]
