‘10,000 new courts needed to remove backlog of cases’

India needs to have more courts in order to resolve the growing number of pending cases, said chief justice of India KG Balakrishnan at the inauguration ceremony of one of its kind model e-court launched by the Gujarat High Court. The e-court is a pilot project brought about in partnership with the Centre for Development of Advance Computing (CDAC), Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC) and Directorate of Forensics Sciences (DFS) Delhi and Gujarat. Balakrishnan emphasised on the need for setting up more courts in the country and promoting work on e-court management. “The country needs at least 10,000 new courts to ensure that cases are disposed of within a period of four years. The concerned authorities are also working on installing e-court management system in the Supreme Court.” 

While discussing about the kind of computerisation done in courts across the country, Balakrishnan said, “Some 15,000 courts in the country are provided with laptops to stay connected.” He also said that an addition of over 4,000 courts are likely to come up at village level. The inauguration of the e-court model by Balakrishanan was followed by a demonstration of the project through video conferencing by additional principal sessions judge PB Desai. The workings of the five-way video conferencing, which coordinated with the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), Sabarmati Central Jail, police commissioner, city civil and sessions court and the district collectorate of Kutch, was demonstrated to showcase the utility of the system in making legal procedure less complicated. The e-court will also be equipped with the latest gadgets like audio and video recording to preserve court proceedings and avoid tampering.

Besides, the CJI made an inference to correlate the increase in litigation to education. Citing an example he said, “In 2008, litigation in Kerala increased by 30 per cent while in Jharkhand, it went up by only 3 per cent, clearly indicating that people in Jharkhand do not have sufficient information or awareness about approaching courts because of lack of proper education.”

The significance of mediation centre in the country for settling cases was also felt. “While in Delhi 50-55 per cent cases have already been disposed off, in Bangalore some 67 per cent of the pending cases have been settled with the help of mediation centres,” informed Balakrishnan adding that the under trial prisoners should be kept separate from the convicted prisoners. The inauguration ceremony also witnessed the presence of chief justice of Gujarat high court KS Radhakrishnan. Amit Shah, minister of state for home, law and justice, parliamentary affairs and prison, and high court judges, Justice Mohit Shah and Justice KS Jhaveri, were also present at the function as guests of honour.