Indian Judiciary to go paperless

On 10^th of May 2017, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Justice J S Khehar launched the Integrated Court Management Information System (ICMIS) in New Delhi for complete digitization of litigation in all courts.  The government had set aside Rs 2,130 crore for the e-court mission mode project for the year 2016-17.

Why was this initiative taken?

This system aims at integrating all the high courts and subordinate courts so that it can reduce the bulky volume of paper books that are filed with the Supreme Court. It will help the litigant to access data online so that he can know the progress of his case on a real-time basis.

Analysis

Currently, the Supreme Court has 61,000 pending cases and the 24 High Courts in the country have about 38.70 lakh pending cases. By introducing this system, Prime Minister Narendra Modi feels it will provide legal aid to the poor by ensuring speedy justice for them. The Chief Justice has requested the High Court judges to work during the summer break to help the poor get justice. The paperless initiative will ensure more transparency and less manipulation of documents in the judiciary system.

Assessment

India is not the first country to implement paperless judiciary, Minnesota, Philippines and other countries across the world have also taken this step towards digitalization of the judiciary. It is an eco friendly initiative as it will save thousands of trees and liters of water used to make paper. It would bring down the cost of printing and mailing documents via post and will avoid the delay in receipt of the documents. Will the process fasten the pace of justice delivery?

This depends more on the efficiency of the workers in the court and not in the method of data storage. Steps should be taken to provide security from professional hackers for the large chucks of data stored online. A big challenge to this system can be the lack of technological understanding for the lower subordinate courts.