Integrate virtual courts into legal ecosystem: Parliamentary panel

A Parliamentary panel on Friday recommended integrating virtual courts into legal eco-system, saying it would result in an improvement over traditional courts as those are more citizen friendly and offer greater access to justice, besides being cost-effective for both individual litigants and court.

"Traditional courtrooms may well remain necessary for our future, but they are certainly not sufficient. There is a need to integrate virtual courts into the country’s legal ecosystem," the panel headed by BJP MP Bhupendra Yadav said.

In its interim report on functioning of virtual courts, introduced following Covid-19 pandemic, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice, said amendments may be brought in laws to legalise it and its proceedings.

The judiciary may identify categories of cases that can be tried by virtual courts, it said.

It noted the Department of Justice in its written replies to the committee submitted that the offences under Motor Vehicles Act (Traffic Challan cases), petty offences, cases registered under Section 138 of Negotiable Instruments Act, Motor Accident Claim Petition cases can be tried in virtual courts.

"The committee is of the view that all such matters where personal presence may be dispensed with, can be transferred from regular court establishments to virtual courts. The committee believes that virtual adjudication will bring massive benefits across the system," it said.

In complex cases such as those involving interpretation of law, facts, examination of a large number of witnesses and so forth, a hybrid model may be adopted wherein manual processes such as filing of plaint, vakalatnama, issuing of summons etc may be automated and digitised and the hearing may be held in a physical courtroom, it said.

Virtual courts can be extended permanently to various Appellate Tribunals like TDSAT, IPAB, NCLAT etc located across the country which do not require personal appearances of the parties or advocates, the committee said.

The panel noted that the concept of virtual courts has gained immense ground during Covid-19 pandemic times.

"It is and will remain the new reality and the new normal. The committee, therefore, recommends that the concept of virtual courts may well be extended to cover arbitration hearings, conciliation and summary trials," it said.

For instance, if national and international arbitrations are allowed to be conducted through virtual courts , there will be hardly any requirement for real time travel to distant locations. This move will unlock the courts and also mitigate the inconvenience of attending courts as long distance travels can be dispensed with and proceedings become less expensive as well, it added.

Maintaining that digital transformation of the judiciary has important implications for clearing the significant backlog of cases, it said though virtual courts have their own shortcomings, they constituted an advancement over the existing system, and therefore, are worth embracing.

It also recommended that the Bar Council of India may introduce a computer course in law courses to enable students to get trained in handling computers and get adapted to the online systems. This will help educate and equip budding lawyers with knowledge and skills required for handling digital platforms.

Notably, video conferencing facilities have been operationalised between 3,240 court complexes and corresponding 1,272 prisons for purposes for dealing with remand matters.

In the wake of pandemic, the Supreme Court had on April 6 Suo Motu directed all courts to adopt virtual courts system.