NEW DELHI: With an aim to create and adopt a citizen-centric digital justice platform for the judiciary, a Bangalore-based civil society organisation has come out with a model which is not only litigant friendly but will also be a boon for judges and other stakeholders.
The Whitepaper series launched by Daksh describes as to how the use of technology can be useful for the entire judicial system, right from filing of the complaint to the final order in the case.
As per the model, individual has to log into the platform and then files a complaints online which will then go to the concerned court directly and then the basic procedure will follow of issuing of summons and Surya Prakash BS, Fellow and Programme Director, Daksh explained the idea behind launching of such a platform and said, “We have been working on the idea of having such a platform for over an year now and firmly believes that the present system is not litigant friendly as they have to heavily dependent on their advocates for accessing information and understanding the progress of their cases.
Though this has been gradually changing, it has been a process of incremental change. The motivation of the present exercise is to envisage a total transformation of the judiciary, by implementing a next generation, citizen-centric platform.”
The paper compared India with six other countries where the judicial system is much more advanced. It laid emphasis on creating an information echo system so that not only litigant but also the police enforcement agencies can benefit from the same. “This proposed platform will work as a boon especially for government as most of the ministries and departments have cross litigations and lot of manpower is wasted to track the developments in the courts at ease, but this platform will help overcome this hurdle,” Surya explains further.
On the issue of strengthening the present system which is reeling under huge pendency and vacancy, Surya says the whitepaper has talked about how lot of judicial time is wasted in issuing only summons or notices in the cases. “By using this platform, summons and notices can be issued instantly without any hassle and will reach the concerned person electronically,” Surya adds. The proposed platform has already been submitted to Niti aayog for further implementation.
Talking about the logistical support and money involved, Surya explains that the designing of this platform and creating APIs in future will be less expensive than what we are presently spending on the e-courts mission which is entering its third phase. Citing the example of a tax tribunal in UK, Surya tells that, “You don’t have to go to the tribunal for filing the case and then for fighting the case. Since 2018, asynchronous hearings are happening there. Everything related to the case has to be filed online on a platform and judge will give its order after analysing it.”
Citizen-centric next gen platform for justice delivery
Making justice system more accessible through several ways
STEPS UNDER VIRTUAL
Filing of basic information of litigant
Opting for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)
Filing of case and plaint
Generation of unique number to case
Online payment of court fees
Notification of case updates
Filing of statement of defendant
Uploading of evidence documents
Application of discovery documents
List of witnesses submitted online
Submission of arguments based on evidence
Judge can generate judgement online
Online appeal can be filed by aggrieved party
Online application of winning party to execute judgement
VIA VIDEO
Live streaming of proceedings
Cross examination through video conferencing
Video submission of arguments after examination
KEY BENEFITS FOR STAKEHOLDERS
Citizens: Single point of access to information
Government: Reduce delays in govt litigation
Judges+ Court personnel: Optimises workflows and tools
Lawyers: Suggests action-based on predicted outcomes
Police: Efficiently share & access information
Prisons: Better communication with the judiciary