The Supreme Court is going 'green' it seems. In a move aimed at protecting environment and at the same time being user-friendly, the Supreme Court has decided to move on from using heaps of sheets to print daily cause-lists. It will now create entire lists of cases scheduled to be taken up by each bench, in the PDF format with cases listed before each Court accessible just at the click of a button.
Not just this, under the aegis of present Chief Justice of India S H Kapadia, who’s demitting the office by end of this month, ‘closed’ doors of Supreme Court are being opened to make it more litigant-friendly.
For the first time, a dedicated ‘help me’ inquiry counter has been set up to help litigants with all their court-related queries and provide them with assistance. Along with it, many services like filing of cases or applying for a certified copy of judgment have been shifted from the high-security zone of the court premises, where one has to have a photo-entry pass to get access to, to the low-security zone within the premises.
By shifting these services, the administration, however, has not compromised on the security threat faced by the top court. “Anybody, who wishes to access these services, is adequately frisked and checked, and identity is established, with making his interface with court machinery hassle-free”, said a senior official of the registry, requesting not to be named.
Technology is surely helping the Supreme Court in its attempts to adapt to changing means, generating causelists in PDF format is one. To access this user-friendly causelist, advocates may not have to go the tedious way of accessing the court’s website and then, clicking on the causelists link. Rather, the Registry has decided to provide this PDF causelist “individually” to the advocates, who are interested.
A circular to this effect was issued and sent last week to the SC Bar Association (SCBA) and Advocates-on-Record (AoR) Association, seeking to know e-mail addresses of advocates and senior advocates who are interested in receiving the entire causelists in PDF format with several features. The Registry has asked all member-advocates “to furnish their e-mail addresses for receiving the entire causelists in bookmarked PDF format” so that it is sent individually through e-mail. Put together, the total advocates registered with the Supreme Court Bar would be around 10,000 of whom, according to a senior executive member of SCBA, around 5,000-6,000 would be accessing their e-mails and will avail the benefit of this facility.
For the record, on any given day, it takes over 100 pages to print an entire causelist, which is printed in thousands to ensure each registered advocate gets one of his own.
According to the circular, which was signed by one of the Additional Registrars Ashok T Ukrani, the Registry has started generating entire causelists in PDF format, leaving minimal chances to edit or change the same, with bookmarks for each court.
On being informed of such a facility, advocate Abani Kumar Sahu said, “By accessing the soft copy of this bookmarked causelists, we can most quickly and effortlessly refer to the cases listed in the court one wish to access by just clicking on the tile of court. And this could be done with just click of one button even on our mobile phones, which most of the lawyers use these days.” Added senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan: “Indeed, there would be so much of saving paper in the process.”
- Sunday Standard