Imagine a day not so far away when all you have to do is click on your mouse to fight all your legal battles. No more carrying bundles of papers to and from the court — in a nutshell, the judiciary will become paperless in couple of years!
Petitions and application of criminal or civil cases will soon be filed through internet only. Appellants can also know the status of their respective cases through the internet, one can procure judicial order from the internet, and lawyers will be able to procure judgments and decisions of the higher courts from the e-library through the internet. The state judiciary is transforming itself from the manual in to the world of information technology. In fact, the Gujarat high court has already got the process rolling and it will become factual in next couple of years.
The digitisation of the court records in the various courts has been started for the e-commerce project of the high court.
According to the official sources, computer centres have to be established covering all the district and taluka courts in the 246 court complexes in Gujarat. Almost 68% of the site preparation work has been completed till now. In the next phase, courts in the taluka-level will be completely computerised. The steering committee, which was constituted for the information technology project, has directed all the principal district judges to complete site preparation work of all court complexes by this year end at the latest.
The e-committee of the HC has decided to provide the hardware after completion of site preparation as well as networking works. "One personal computer along with one laser-jet printer is provided to all the district courts and city courts as well as the family courts of Surat and Rajkot for the use of library," the registrar general of the Gujarat HC, PP Bhatt said, adding that in addition to this, the family courts of Surat and Rajkot are also provided with a personal computer with copier-cum-network printer.
Considering the importance of having a legal database — which helps judicial officers refer to previous judgments of supreme courts and other HCs on similar cases — the steering committee has also decided to set up an electronic library — the e-library — in the Gujarat HC library as well as all the district courts at the first instance.
Accordingly, legal databases like All India Reporter, Gujarat Law Reporter and Gujarat Law Herald, are installed in the personal computers provided for the high court library as well as all the district and city courts as well as the family courts of Surat and Rajkot.
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