‘Courts can resume work via video-conferencing’

Pradeep.Thakur@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:04.04.2020

With video-conference facilities, courts can reopen and resume functioning in the midst of the lockdown due to Covid-19 spread, former Supreme Court judge Justice Madan Lokur has said.

Speaking to TOI, Justice Lokur, who spearheaded the project for countrywide computerisation of courts as the judge-incharge of the e-committee of the apex court, said, “Under the e-courts project, all district courts were made video-conference compatible many years ago. Many district courts utilised the facility for routine remand and other related activities. Family courts used it for hearings, including in cases where a party was abroad and couldn’t come to India for financial reasons.”

It’s not very difficult for the Supreme Court and high courts in the country to start full court operations, learning from the “valuable experience” of district courts where video-conferencing has been used somewhat extensively, Justice Lokur said.

“The SC must strengthen the base for the average district court litigant if it wants to make a difference and must learn lessons from the use of technology by these courts,” he said. Cosmetic and knee-jerk methods and photo-ops will attract attention for a few weeks and then die down, he noted, adding that the solution lies in courts recognising that before further ad hoc experimentation.

Under the present circumstances, the SC can curb rising pendency of cases by maximising operation of courts across India. Almost all of the 18,000 subordinate and district courts, HCs and the SC have been computerised and judges have been connected to the National Judicial Data Grid with availability of other facilities such as electronic filing of cases and examining of witnesses through video-conferencing.

Full report on www.toi.in