Judges probe for more IT in Indian judiciary. A chance for good governance and entrepreneurship to go hand in hand

IT has shown bright possibilities in making governance easier, by eliminating the middleman, bringing in transparency in process, setting accountability right, and most importantly making processes faster. The dire need for greater IT probe in Indian judiciary was recently stressed upon by the Judges of Supreme Court and High Courts to help reduce pendency of cases and better functioning of judiciary.

Speaking at the Valedictory session of the three-day North Zone Judicial Conference on "Strengthening Justice Delivery System: Tools and Techniques" in Shimla, Supreme Court judge Justice Madan B Lokur said this (IT) would empower the litigant to know about his case status without approaching his advocate.

Later, the information can be made available on his mobile phones, and a kiosk could be set up in every court building for the litigants to know about the status of their cases, he said, adding Tte National Judicial data grid was available only on NIC NET.

Video conferencing facility should be provided between jails and court in at least one court of each court complex in the country, which could be used, not only to grant routine remands and recording evidence of the witnesses, without them travelling to the courtrooms, he added.

Justice Dinesh Maheshwari of Allahabad High Court and Justice Tarlok Chauhan and Justice Sureshwar Thakur of HP High Court also emphasised on the use of information technology in the judicial functioning to reduce pendency of cases.

Justice Kurian Joseph of Supreme Court said "we are going back strengthened by the deliberations held here and it is now our duty to strengthen the system."

He prompted the judicial officers to take independent decisions permitted by law without letting any kind of pressure prevail on them.

He also reminded the judicial officers of their duty to serve the people by interpreting and applying law as per the peculiarity of the case.

In the three-day conference, 106 judicial officers of Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Uttrakhand participated and deliberated upon the state of judicial delivery system in India and various tools and techniques for reducing pendency.

Ten sessions were held, in the three days, on various aspects of Justice Delivery System in India, which were chaired by many sitting and former Judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts.

Among those who participated include Justice T S Thakur, Justice Madan B Lokur, Justice Kurian Joseph, Justice A K Sikri and Justice A K Goel of Supreme court, Chief Justice of Tripura High Court Deepak Gupta, Chief Justice of HP High Court Mansoor Ahmad Mir and judges of high courts and former Judges of Supreme court.

Source : PTI

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