CJI D Y Chandrachud.
Credit: PTI Photo
Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud Thursday said huge budget has been allotted for the third phase of the e-courts project, which will equip judiciary with technology, especially the lower courts. He also pointed out that during Covid-19 pandemic, one of the high courts had no funds to purchase license necessary for video conferencing platform.
During the hearing on dilution of Article 370 of the Constitution, senior advocate Dushyant Dave for one of the petitioners, submitted before a five-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India that the court has now become tech-savvy but if this technological boost can be carried to the lower courts, it will be a great contribution.
The bench also comprising Justices S K Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai, and Surya Kant, said some state governments are very supportive.
“I remember at the time of the pandemic, I won’t name the high court they did not have money to pay for licences for video platform… we just withdrew some licences from the Supreme Court and transferred to them… they were absolutely in dire strait, that time there was a lockdown,” the CJI said.
He said it was not possible to run the court without video conferencing.
“In phase 3, we have a huge budget… we are in the process of doing that (making lower court technology friendly). Setting up our own cloud software for video conferencing,” the CJI said.
On August 15, in his Independence Day address at a Supreme Court Bar Association function, the Chief Justice had said “we are implementing the phase 3 of the e-courts project, which has received budgetary sanction for Rs 7000 crore….it seeks to revolutionize by interlinking all courts throughout the country, setting up infrastructure of paperless courts, digitization of court records, setting up of advanced e-seva kendras”.
The Union Budget, in February, had announced the launch of phase three of the e-courts project with an outlay of Rs 7,000 crore.