Wednesday, October 29, 2014

E-Judiciary In India Is Needed

India has been experimenting with technology for long. Even a basic level legal framework has been introduced in India in the form of Information Technology Act, 2000 though it requires immediate repeal or amendment. There are many shortcomings of the IT Act 2000 and one of them is non binding nature of e-governance obligations of Indian government. The National E-Governance Plan (NEGP) of India has also failed to meet its objectives and marks. As a result India has failed on the fronts of both e-government and e-governance.

While India is still struggling to deal with basic level technology adoption, the BJP government has announced projects like Digital India and Internet of things (IoT) that rely prominently upon technology. These projects intend to extend the services to general public in the filed like healthcare, education, judicial services etc.

As far as judiciary is concerned, we are still struggling to establish the first e-court of India till October 2014. In these circumstances, achieving the objective of establishing e-judiciary in India is still a distant dream. E-judiciary project of India is also suffering from lack of techno legal expertise to manage the same. For instance, we have a single techno legal e-courts training centre in India. There is urgent need to develop e-courts skills in India so that e-judiciary project can become a reality.

However, it is not the case that no progress has been made in this regard. India judiciary has taken a pro active role to introduce technology for legal and judicial purposes. For instance legal notices can be served through e-mails, e-filing directions has been prescribed by Delhi High Court, marriage registration certificates can be obtained through video conferencing, etc.

If India wishes to achieve her noble objective of providing access to justice to marginalised segment of India, courts automation and digital preservation, much more is required to be done. Mere policy formulation is not going to be helpful and it is the actual implementation that is important. The BJP government must stress upon actual implementation than formulating policies and strategies that remain on paper alone.