By Pratyush Kumar
On the auspicious occasion of the 26th of November, we commemorate Constitution Day in India—a momentous celebration that signifies the adoption of our Constitution. On this day, we, the people of India, bestowed upon ourselves this sacred document, a testament to our collective commitment to justice, liberty, and the democratic ethos that guides our nation.
This year’s Constitution Day marks a special occasion as a 7-foot Statue of the architect of the Indian Constitution - Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was inaugurated by the Hon’ble President of India Smt. Droupadi Murmu in the premises of the Supreme Court of India.
In the ceremony, along with the Hon’ble President, dignitaries like the Hon’ble CJI Dr. D.Y Chandrachud, other Judges of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India and the Union Minister for Law and Justice Hon’ble Mr Arjun Ram Meghwal in their inaugural speeches highlighted the ideas, values and the vision of Dr Ambedkar which focused broadly on Constitutionalism and Rule of law. On this august occasion, most importantly, the Hon'ble Supreme Court presented its various citizen-centric e-initiatives which were launched by the Hon’ble President of India at the Supreme Court. The CJI spoke about the endeavours of the apex court to adopt new technology and bring it to the service of citizens so as to make justice accessible to everyone fairly and quickly.
The new initiatives launched are:- 1. Virtual Justice Clock 2. e-SCR Hindi 3. FASTER 2.0 (Fast and Secure Transmission of Electronic Records)
1. Virtual Justice Clock Virtual Justice Clock of the Supreme Court is launched.
It will provide statistics regarding the cases filed and cases disposed of.
The Virtual justice clock can be accessed on the Supreme Court Website. Some of its features include- · Case statistics of the Supreme Court open for all citizens for free. · Simple and User-friendly interface · Provides statistics for o institution of cases in the Supreme Court o disposal of cases in the Supreme Court o CCR (Case Clearance Rate) · Also provides information about the age-wise pendency of cases, the listing of the old cases and their CCR. · This justice clock is also available in the Hindi language.
2. e-SCR and eSCR Hindi
Judgements in English Language- The Supreme Court has delivered a total of 36068 judgements since its enforcement on 28th Jan 1950 till date (25th November, 2023). All of these judgements are made available on the e-SCR platform to all citizens free of cost. The e-SCR platform was launched in January 2023. But all these judgements were available in English only.
Now, as a part of its endeavours to enhance access to justice the Supreme Court has commenced translation of its reportable judgements into regional languages by using Machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Judgements in Other Indian Languages- More than 10,000 judgements of the Supreme Court have already been translated into other Indian languages like- Punjabi, Tamil, Gujarati, Marathi, Telegu, Odiya, Malayalam, Bengali, Kannada, Assamese, Nepali, Urdu, Garo, Khasi, Konkani.
Judgements in the Hindi language- Nearly all 36068 judgments delivered by the Supreme Court so far have been translated into Hindi and most of them have been uploaded on the official website. The rest of them are in the process of uploading.
These Hindi-translated judgments can be found on the SCR Hindi platform launched today. Some of the features of eSCR Hindi are- · Search free of cost. · Judgements and orders can be searched. · Search can be done using keywords, citations, etc. · One or more parameters can be used for searching a judgement. · Various parameters for search include Name of Judge, Section/Act, Date of pronouncement, Case Number, and Neutral Citation. · On the search result, Neutral citation is displayed along with the judgement. · On the judgement, neutral citations and QR codes are displayed.
3. FASTER 2.0 Last year on Constitution Day, our Hon’ble President of India raised concerns regarding the plight of under-trial prisoners. Now, moving a step towards solving this problem the Supreme Court has developed an application FASTER 2.0
FASTER stands for Fast And Secure Transmission of Electronic Records.
a) FASTER facilitates speedy transmissions of orders to the High Court, Trial Courts and Prisons and provides monitoring facilities to ensure its effective implementation.
b) Different kinds of users may access FASTER based on the services required for them.
There are Court users and Prison users.
c) It immediately transfers the judicial orders (for example, of the release of a person) to jail authorities or to the District Courts and High Courts via Electronic means so that the person is released without delay. The advocates can tag the Supreme Court orders with their cases, assign recipients and send the order directly. This will simplify and speed up the process.
d) The order transmission records are stored in the Blockchain and are irreversible. They cannot be changed, deleted or destroyed.
e) The Trial court users can receive the orders and update compliance. The Prison users can receive and acknowledge orders.
Conclusion
So, these were the 3 e-initiatives (Virtual JusticeClock, eSCRHindi, FASTER2.0) taken by the Supreme Court of India and were launched on the occasion of Constitution Day by the President of India.
These citizen-centric initiatives make great use of technology and AI to serve the people and hopefully will be beneficial to the citizens, especially to the legal fraternity.
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