What Chief Justice Chandrachud Claims About E-courts and E-filing Systems in India

What Chief Justice Chandrachud Claims About E-courts and E-filing Systems in India

Either Chandrachud is totally ignorant about information and communication technologies (ICTs) or he wants to deliberately live in a fool’s paradise, as the state of technology usage in courts is quite dismal. 

At the J20 Summit (May 12-14, 2024) of heads of Supreme Courts and Constitutional Courts of G20 members in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro, the Chief Justice of India (CJI) D. Y. Chandrachud delivered his usual rhetoric.

Chandrachud not only praised the Indian courts, which are, in fact, facing a serious credibility crisis, but he also falsely commended the technology adoption by Indian courts. This report will focus on the status of technology introduction in courts.

Either Chandrachud is totally ignorant about information and communication technologies (ICTs) or he wants to deliberately live in a fool’s paradise, as the state of technology usage in courts is quite dismal. 

The e-filing systems are inoperative and digital courts / e-courts / virtual courts which are supposed to herald a paperless culture are in such a bad shape that they hardly use any technology or use some basic technology in a distorted manner. [ You can click here to study an exclusive research report released in February 2024 on digital courts of India. ]

Despite myriad claims of using diverse tech systems, video conferencing is perhaps the only technology interface that courts use. Although some elementary video conferencing systems have been introduced in courts, the quality of their transmission is very poor and the judges still expect litigants to appear in courts. 

Likewise, most judges and lawyers in Indian courts are so illiterate that instead of working in paperless courts, they still force litigants to submit paper documents because they are not trained to read digital documents on their computers.

FALSE CLAIMS BY CJI

But enamored by technology, CJI Chandrachud believes that the Indian courts have already become tech-driven courts which can operate on digital infrastructure. It is a totally unfounded belief. It appears that the technology understanding of Chandrachud is so low that he cannot properly assess the performance of digital courts.

In his lecture at the J20 Summit, Chandrachud claimed that the e-filing platform at the Supreme Court is successful because over 150,000 e-filings have taken place to date. He also talked about the use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for case management, which helps save costs and achieve transparency.

But Chandrachud forgets that at the current level the number of e-filings is like a drop in the ocean because the number of court cases being filed in India are in millions and about 5 crore (50 million) cases are pending in various Indian courts.

For the year 2023, for example, nearly 2.6 crore (26 million) new cases were instituted across various levels of courts. These include civil, criminal, and other types of cases at the Supreme Court, high courts, and subordinate courts.

The use of FOSS that Chandrachud mentioned is not even visible in courts, because there is hardly any member of the judiciary – judges and lawyers – who is competent enough to use any software. 

As I had burned my fingers with the so-called virtual courts and e-filing system, I wondered why Chandrachud keeps repeating his falsehood at various academic forums by exaggerating the adoption of technology by courts.

You can click here to download and read the e-courts and e-filing systems research report which is also given below.

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