BENGALURU: Karnataka High Court on Thursday asked the State Government to inform whether it is ready to implement electronic filing (e-filing) system of petitions and documents. It requires dedicated space and funds, keeping in mind the practical difficulties in introducing facilities in all courts.
The direction was issued by the division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Pradeep Singh Yerur during hearing a PIL. The PIL is filed by advocate Dilraj Rohit Sequeira and two NGOs seeking directions to the State Government and Centre to implement e-filing system in the courts and tribunal forums. If implemented, it would help conservation forest.
They said the petition was filed for the benefit of litigants and advocates while keeping in mind the overall impact on environment. E-filing saves money and time, besides reducing the workload, they said.
The bench said ‘a huge manpower was required to convert files of pending cases into e-format, besides huge space, funds and high speed scanning machines. There was no point in introducing the facility without converting the available documents’.
The court said there was also no sufficient space in High Court to accommodate high-speed scanning machines.The new software introduced on October 14, 2019 had provision for e-filing but space and funds were required to upgrade the existing servers to store documents in digitised format.
Petitioners contended that “if the new system is adopted fully, there will be no room for any manipulation.”“E-filing reduces paper usage. Supreme Court has announced this huge reform in 2017 and four states have already implemented it and courts in other states have also appreciated this reform,” the petitioners said.
Advantage Of E-Filing
“E-filing plays an important role in conserving environment. By chopping a tree 8,333 sheets of paper can be manufactured. This means that, approximately 20,000 trees are cut each year only to meet the requirements of judicial department in the country. In all there are 13,670 courts in India, with expenditure on paper alone calculated at Rs 1.36 crore per day,” the petitioners said.
Court order
‘Initiate action against pubs without licence’
The Karnataka High Court on Thursday directed the state government to submit details of the total number of pubs or bars operating without obtaining license. The court also made it clear that the authorities should set criminal law in motion under Section 36 of Karnataka Police Act 1963, if they are operating without licence under Licensing and Controlling of Places of Public Entertainment (Bengaluru City) Order of 2005. The division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Pradeep Singh Yerur issued this direction during hearing a PIL, seeking directions to the police department to prevent nuisance created by pubs and bars at Indiranagar.The court also pointed out that the police have not followed the mandatory procedures in registering FIRs in such cases.