DEHRADUN: In a first, Uttarakhand is planning ‘e-court vans’ in the state from Independence Day. In the initial phase, the vans will be rolled out in five hill districts — Tehri, Chamoli, Uttarakashi, Pithoragarh and Champawat.
“The idea is to make the judicial process accessible to remote hills areas of the state. District judges concerned will be responsible for the functioning of the vans. In later stages, the e-court vans will be rolled out in other districts, too,” said an official from the Uttarakhand High Court.
The idea is a brainchild of Chief Justice of Uttarakhand High Court R S Chauhan. He took the initiative of starting a mobile court in Adilabad while he was the Chief Justice of the Telangana High Court.
The vans will be equipped with wifi, video conferencing and other facilities, with judges hearing cases with the help of a team that will enable the functioning of these e-courts.
The standard operating procedure for the functioning of the mobile court units will be out soon.
Case backlog in the Uttarakhand HC has increased by 22 per cent in five years with 38,676 cases pending. The information was shared in a reply by former Union Minister for Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Parsad in Rajya Sabha in March.
The data revealed that in 2016, the state had 32,004 cases which declined to 30,022 the following year but rose in 2018 to 34,049 and 35,407 in 2019. Courts of Himachal Pradesh and UP have more than double cases pending till March 23.