Supreme Court to hold national event on Jan 1 every year to discuss issues in district judiciary

New Delhi: The Supreme Court would organise a national conference over the issues faced by the district judiciary on January 1.

According to a press release, the conference comprises four technical sessions, of which the first would be chaired by Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna to "bring together the experience and knowledge of each high court" to bring about judicial reforms for a timely and efficient case disposal.

The first session would also comprise discussions on the implementation of the policy and action plan for 2024 prepared by the national court management systems committee, which identifies bottlenecks in case disposal and provides strategies to reduce the backlog of cases.

Addressing issues regarding the functioning of family courts and special courts, exploring the feasibility of having evening courts, and expediting the disposal of cases through alternate dispute resolution methods would also be discussed, the release said.

The second session would chaired by Justice B R Gavai and have deliberations on the categorisation of cases and leveraging technology for justice delivery.

"The (second) session proposes to discuss uniform nomenclature and code for each case category, incorporating the use of information technology such as digital courts, software, e-filing, virtual courts, video conferencing, transcription facility, etc., along with effective use of e-sewa kendras/e-kiosks," said the release.

Digitisation of case records and introduction of e-Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal would be included in the discussions, it added.

Justice Surya Kant would be chairing the third session to address issues over human resources in district judiciary.

"Timely and institutionalised recruitment of judicial officers and court staff, continual recruitment/empanelment of public prosecutors/legal aid counsels/legal aid defence counsels and creation of a permanent IT and data cadre in all high courts and district courts will be deliberated upon," the release said.

The final sessions on enhancing professional proficiency would comprise discussions on career progression and continuous performance evaluation of judicial officers, mentoring of judicial officers by inspecting judges and state judicial academies, establishing a common curriculum for training, capacity building and continuing education of judicial officers. The sessions would be chaired by the CJI.