Indian Courts

Submitted by:

KARAN MISHRA (PRN: 18010223084)

Division- E. Batch-2018-2023

OF

Symbiosis Law School, NOIDA

(Symbiosis International (Deemed University), PUNE)

In

February, 2019

Under The Guidance Of

Miss Richa Dang

Symbiosis Law School, NOIDA

(Symbiosis International (Deemed University), PUNE)

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 Appendix ‘B’ – Certificate

CERTIFICATE

The project entitled “Indian Courts” submitted to the Symbiosis Law School,
NOIDA Fundamentals of IT as part of Internal assessment is based on my
original work carried out under the guidance of Mrs. Richa Dang from January
to April. The research work has not been submitted elsewhere for award of any
degree.

The material borrowed from other sources and incorporated in the thesis has been
duly acknowledged. I understand that I myself could be held responsible and
accountable for plagiarism, if any, detected later on.

Signature of the candidate

Date: 07/02/2019

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 INDEX

1) Introduction

2) Evolution of Indian Courts

3) Technological Advancements

4) Bibliography

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Introduction

The Indian judiciary consists of the Supreme court at the apex level, high court at state level, district

courts for each district of every state and subordinate courts for further subdivisions of each district.

The Indian judiciary follows a common law system under which the judiciary can also make laws

through precedents. The jurisdiction of each court differs. The higher courts like high courts and

supreme courts can set up precedents while the district and subordinate courts cannot do that. Every

court has its own original jurisdiction, for example Supreme Court that has the original jurisdiction of

handling disputes between states and between state and union. There is also appellate jurisdiction under

which one can appeal to the higher courts from the lower courts. The Indian constitution has laid down

the various powers, appointment criteria and removal procedure of judges of all levels judges. The

judiciary has maintained its distance from executive and has tried to ensure fairness and transparency

in its process. But unfortunately, our Indian judiciary has also fallen prey to the evils of corruption and

inefficiency. Though the judiciary is suffering from these ailments but it still has been able to keep its

independent and dominant nature alive. It can question the legislature and executive if they cross their

boundaries. The major issue that our courts face is pendency of cases.

According to Business today edition it was published that around 3.3crore cases are pending in the

Indian courts. In one of the researches it was also found that there are only 50 judges available for every

10lakh Indians. There can be various reasons behind this issue like lack of judges, infrastructure or long

procedures etc. To reduce pendency, ‘Fast track courts’, morning courts/evening courts and ‘mobile

courts’ have been set up to deliver justice at the doorstep. Lok Adalats, an informal justice delivery

mechanism has proved to be the most successful measure amongst all. The courts have undertaken

reforms to counter these evils. One of the major reforms undertaken was the E-courts reforms of 2008

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under which it was decided that all courts including Taluk courts would be Computerized. This

computerization included uploading the status of cases, judgements, backlogs cases etc. online. This

ensured transparency in courts and empowered the litigants. The computerization eliminated the manual

entry of cases and also reduced the chances of human error.

Evolution of Indian Courts from Ancient to Modern

India has a single unified and integrated judicial system and Supreme Court of India is at the apex court of the

Indian judicial system.

It settles disputes, interprets laws, protects fundamental rights and acts as guardian of the Constitution.

During ancient times, the concept of justice was inextricably linked with religion and was embedded in

the inscriptive norms of socially stratified caste groups.

In medieval times, the dictum 'King can do no wrong' was applied and the King arrogated to himself an

important role in administering justice.

And with the advent of the British colonial administration, India witnessed a judicial system introduced

on the basis of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence.

Judicial Administration in Ancient India

Law in ancient India meant “Dharma” in the broader sense. The Vedas, regarded as divine revelation,

were the supreme source of authority for all codes which contained what was then understood as law or

dharma. The traditional records have governed and molded the life and evolution of the Hindu

community from age to age. These are supposed to have their source in the Rigveda.

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Justice was administered in ancient India according to the rules of civil and criminal law as provided in

the Manusmriti. There was a regular system of local courts from which an appeal lay to the superior

court at the capital, and from there to the King in his own court. The King’s Court was composed of

himself, a number of judges, and his domestic chaplain who directed his conscience; but they only

advised and the decision rested with the King. Arbitrators in three gradations existed below the local

courts: first of kinsmen, secondly of men of the same trade, and thirdly, of townsmen. An appeal lay

from the first to the second, from the second to the third, and from the third to the local court. Thus

under this system there were no less than five appeals. Decision by arbitration, generally of

five (Panches), was very common when other means of obtaining justice were not available. The

village headman was the judge and magistrate of the village community and also collected and

transmitted the Government revenue.

Legal System in India during the British Period

India has one of the oldest legal systems in the world. Its law and jurisprudence stretches back centuries,

forming a living tradition which has grown and evolved with the lives of its diverse people. The history

of the present judicial system may be traced back to the year 1726, when a Charter was issued by King

George I for bringing about important changes in the judicial administration of the Presidency Towns

of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. The system of appeals from India to the Privy Council in England

was introduced by this Charter in 1726.

In order to bring about better management of the affairs of the East India Company, the East India

Company Regulating Act of 1773 was promulgated by the King. This Act subjected the East India

Company to the control of the British Government and made a provision for His Majesty by Charters

or Letters Patent to establish the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William at Calcutta, superseding

the then prevalent judicial system. The Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William was established

by a letter patent issued on March 26, 1774. This Court, as a court of record, had full power and

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authority to hear and determine all complaints against any of His Majesty’s subjects for any crimes and

also to entertain, hear and determine any suits or actions against any of His Majesty’s subjects in Bengal,

Bihar and Orissa. Two more Supreme Courts, conceived along the same lines as that of the Supreme

Court of Calcutta, were established at Madras and Bombay by King George III through Charters issued

on 26thDecember, 1800 and on 8th December, 1823 respectively. And the role of the Privy Council has

been a great unifying force and the instrument and embodiment of the rule of law in India. The Judicial

Committee of the Privy Council was made a Statutory Permanent Committee of legal experts to hear

appeals from the British Colonies in the year 1833 by an Act passed by the British Parliament. Thus,

the Act of 1833 transformed the Privy Council into a great imperial court of unimpeachable authority.

The Indian High Court’s Act 1861 reorganized the then prevalent judicial system in the country by

abolishing the Supreme Courts at Fort William, Madras, and Bombay, and also the then existing Sadar

Adalats in the Presidency Towns. The High Courts were established having civil, criminal, admiralty,

vice-admiralty, testimony, intestate, and matrimonial jurisdiction, as well as original and appellate

jurisdiction.

Provincial autonomy was established in India with the establishment of the Government of India Act,

1935, which introduced responsibility at the provincial level and sought the Union of British Indian

Provinces with the rulers of Estate in a federation. As a federal system depends largely upon a just and

competent administration of the law between governments themselves, the 1935 Act provided for the

establishment of the Federal Court, forerunner of the Supreme Court of India. The Federal Court was

the second highest Court in the judicial hierarchy in India.

The Federal Court was the first Constitutional Court and also the first all-India Court of extensive

jurisdiction, and it had Original Jurisdiction in matters where there was dispute between the provinces

or federal States. It was also the Appellate Court for the judgments, decrees, or final orders of the High

Courts. Thus, the Federal Court of India had original, appellate and advisory jurisdiction. The doctrine

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of precedent in India also had its roots in Federal Court as the law declared by the Federal Court and

Privy Council has been given binding affect on all the courts in British India.

Online Services provided by the Supreme Court

In a giant leap towards digitisation, the Supreme Court has digitised a whopping one crore five lakh

pages and records of civil appeals, ranging from the pre-independence era till 2002 as part of its recent

reforms.

The digitisation of court records has been done as part of the document management system and would

make the documents accessible with just a click of the mouse, the 'Indian Judiciary Annual Report

2015-2016', issued by the apex court, said.

Digitisation is today’s demand and the apex court has not failed in paying due attention to this demand.

To increase efficiency and transparency, the Supreme Court of India has shifted from its manual

procedures and moved towards the online platform with various services catering to the public’s need.

The Supreme Court has decided to do away with paper and go digital. This means from the filing of

cases to paying court fees to even printing of visitor passes to witness proceedings, everything will

happen electronically.

These are some of the online services provided by Supreme Court, in detail:

INTEGRAT ED CASE MANAGEMENT AND INFORMAT ION SYSTEM(ICMIS)

Through this system the Supreme Court is aiming for e-filing of cases at the apex court.The ICMIS is

accessible through the “e- filing” tab of the Supreme Court’s website at sci.gov.in. After creating an

account using one’s Aadhar number (UID), the ICMIS promises to make the Supreme Court

“paperless” by providing all kinds of filing facilities to onlineAccording to its website as of today,

those features include, among others, the filing all kinds of cases at all levels of the judiciary, including

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lower courts, online filing instead of manual filing at the registry, a complete list of the case history

associated with individuals, including of incomplete e-filings, and even getting a Supreme Court

visitors pass made online.But the Supreme Court has not made this system compulsory as many

lawyers are comfortable with the manual filing.The SC registry said that the high courts have already

uploaded a large number of files on the ICMIS, after they were given login details to upload digitised

content in a certain format, reported the PTI.With a view to scan and digitise court records including

pending and decided case files in order to activate document management system and to strengthen

immediate accessibilit y with more impetus on transparency, a new assembly line capable of

producing 50,000 scanned pages per day, in end to end processing, was created in February 2016.

CNR Number Search and Case Status Search

CNR is an unique alphanumeric number given to every case and now through this number a person

can get to know the current status and history of the case.

If a person is not aware about the CNR number then he/she can search the status of the case by entering

any of these credentials like the diary number, case number, name of the AOR, party name etc.

This search tool provided by the apex court has surely helped in creating transparency and accessing

the cases easily. Now, one does not need to go to the court every time and wait over their to know

details about their case.

Judgements

Judgements and precedents are the most important things about any court of law.The Supreme Court

has provided for an online platform where one can search for judgement(s) by entering the name of

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the party and the date.All kinds of judgement, reportable or unreportable, all are available.Even if a

person does not know the name of the party they can still search by entering the date or the time period.

JUDIS is Judgement Information System which consists of all reported Supreme Court judgements

from the year 1950 till today.

Causelist

The Causelists are schedule of cases to be heard by the courts on the following day(s). Every court

must have a causelist for each working day. The Causelists give details such as the Court Number,

the bench dealing with the cases and the case details like case number, petitioner/respondent,

respective advocates, etc.Generally, there are two types of causelists. They are: Daily Causelists

and Weekly Causelists. Some Courts have Supplementary lists also.

Daily Causelists are list of cases to be heard by the courts on a given day. Weekly Lists consists of

cases to be heard by the courts in a given week. Supplementary lists consist of cases (mostly urgent

cases) missed out from the Daily Causelist Causelists can be retrieved as Entire Lists or new lists can

be generated through various search options like Courtwise, Judgewise, Case numbe rwise,

Petitioner/Respondent name wise and Advocate name wise. A Causelist on the Net is the replica of

the printed copy circulated by the Courts to Advocates.

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Payment Of SCLSC Panel

Supreme Court Legal Services Committee(SCLSC) has initiated the online payment of

panel lawyers and mediators working for it.The honorarium will be paid to them through

RTGS/NEFT which will transfer the money directly into their bank account.Besides

digitisation of filing and judgement the apex court has taken a progressive step in ensuring

a hassle free and transparent transfer of money.

SCLSC Application

A person can register on the SCLSC website for availing free legal aid services of Supreme

Court lawyers.The application form can be filled online and its status can also be tracked

online.All the information regarding the active case can be traced through Supreme Court’s

main website.All the affidavits and respective forms are also available online.

COURTNIC

This system provides information about the pending case to the advocates/litigants. It handles

about 200 queries a day. Nominal charges are applicable for knowing the case status.

List of Business Information System (LOBIS)

It manages the scheduling of the cases to be heard on the following day. It also has records of

fresh cases, pending cases and disposed cases.

Role Of Technology
 Indian Courts

Technology has become an integral part of the learning process and also for research

purposes. It is used to discover, gather, and organize information.

(1) Text creation, storage and retrieval.

(2) Improved Access to the Law;

(3) Recording of Court Proceedings

(4) Case Management and producing data for administrative purpose

Text Creation, Storage and Retrieval

Apart from the hearing function, judges have to produce written judgements, rulings, and

reasons for the decisions that they continuously make. After the advent of the typewriter, the

judge often wrote decisions in long hand, and the secretaries or typists would then type the

same out in typescript. It is now possible for the judge to type out the decision directly on the

computer. And there are many reasons now why the judge should be familiar with word

processing skills. A judge is able to produce a decision much faster that way. IT definitely

makes production and release of decisions much more efficient than was previously the case.

Most of the documents in our case files be they from advocates or the court, are generated on

computers. This means that copies of the same are available electronically as they are produced

digitally. And even if they have been produced manually, and only hard copies are available it

is possible to scan them and convert them into digital format. This creates an opportunity of

creating and maintaining and electronic copy of case file that would eliminate problems of loss

of the physical file which plagued our courts in Uganda for quite sometime in the past.

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The courts have the capacity to acquire the necessary hardware for this purpose. If an electronic

version of the court file was maintained it would speed the cost of preparing a record for appeal

purposes, thus eliminating one of the bottlenecks to the speedy delivery of justice.

Improved Access to the Law

In many jurisdictions the law applicable is often found in different sources. These include

Statute Books for legislation; Law Reports for case law and Oral Tradition for Customary Law.

The medium for storage of the legislation and case law was, previous to the advent of the

current information technology, only available through hard copy in book form or printed or

typescript. The traditional approach in some jurisdictions was regularly to produce an up-to-

date version in the form of one edition of the laws in force at a particular time. In Uganda, in

particular, the situation got out of hand with the 1964 Edition of the Laws of Uganda remaining

unrevised until recently. And even then the revision so far is partial, limited to the principal

legislation only. The edition got out of print. It was out of date to a significant part. Determining

the applicable law was often quite cumbersome. Law Reporting collapsed thirty years back,

and efforts to revive the same are on going without being successful to-date.

Recording of Court Proceedings

For a long time here in Uganda and elsewhere court proceedings were recorded in long hand

by the judge/magistrate. In some jurisdictions court reporters recorded the proceedings using

stenographic machines using shorthand, and later produced a record of the proceedings. In

other jurisdictions recording was by way of tape recorders recording voice and the record later

being transcribed into a typed record. There have been new developments. Voice recognition

technologies are being tested but are as yet to be perfected. It is now possible to have digital

audio recordings of voice on the computer, allowing the judge capacity to annotate this record

and listen to whatever portion he may want to listen to later. The record so recorded would

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have to be transcribed into a hard copy format (for as long as a hard copy file is maintained),

of which e-versions would be available too. It is also possible to have instantaneous recording

of proceedings by court reporter which can be viewed by the judge and counsel at their

respective desks as the proceedings continue. The advantage of the digital format is that it is

easy to manoeuvre whether it is text, voice (sound) or images.

With the use of IT the pace of proceedings may be speeded up considerably. The quality of the

record is enhanced immensely as it is far more accurate. Cases ought to be resolved faster, both

at trial, and on appeal. This would be the result of the easy availability of the record of the trial.

With Judges freed from the task of recording proceedings, they can pay more attention to the

function for which they are hired. And that is judging.

Case Management and producing data for administrative purpose

Computing has greatly enhanced our capacity to capture study and manipulate data producing

reports and other records that one might be interested in. It is possible using programmes that

can be developed to track events and cases with a view to availing the decision maker

information in a timely manner. Computing is able to do so in considerably much less time

than if the same were done manually. Equipped with this information, it is possible for the

decision maker to take appropriate action, to move a case forward, or to assign it, list it for trial

or take whatever action is appropriate. One is able to follow both the large picture in terms of

the aggregate of cases and the small picture, in terms of a single case. Productions of forms and

other repetitive processes can be automated. In Uganda this has been embraced with the

development of CCAS (Computerised Case Administration System) and MIS (Management

Information System).

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Communication

It is both in the interests of the Judiciary and in the public interest that the public gets to know

and understand what is going on the Judiciary in relation to its mandate. The public ought to

know what problems the judiciary is having and what it is doing to tackle them. The public

ought to know what the judiciary is doing with the resources entrusted to them in carrying out

its mandate. The judiciary does not often have the same platforms as other organs of

government. It does not control the purse strings of government or the coercive machinery of

government in the manner that both the legislature and executive do. The authority of the

judiciary ultimately rests on the confidence that the public has in the services it offers to the

public. It is therefore important that the judiciary is able to communicate to the public. One of

the easier means of doing so is to go online with the requisite information about activities,

problems, and solutions taken to tackle the same in the form of timely reports and updates.

Because of the limited access of our people to online resources, the audience may be limited.

Nevertheless because of the possibility of reuse of that information by media houses, and other

people it is possible it would still reach a wider audience than initially anticipated.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_of_India

2) https://www.prsindia.org/content/use-technology-judiciary

3) https://delhidistrictcourts.nic.in/ejournals/IT_IN_JUD.ppt

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