"Idea is to demystify the operations of the court system", Justice DY Chandrachud launches new Supreme Court e-committee website

Sitting judge of the Supreme Court Justice DY Chandrachud today launched the Supreme Court e-committee's new website..In his inauguration address, Justice Chandrachud termed the e-committee initiative a citizen-centric project aimed at giving citizens all information on the e-initiatives taken by courts across the country..The website, in addition to being a free and open source software, is also easily accessible, scalable, secure, and a "gold-mine of data" and information, the judge said. The idea behind this project, Justice Chandrachud said, was to demystify the operations of the court system, that too in languages the citizens understand..In his address, Justice Chandrachud, who is Chairman of the e-committee, said:."It is multilingual. Today we will have the inaugural English website, but we must be conscious of the fact that English is not the language of the masses. We are going to make this scalable and reach out to citizens in the languages they understand so the idea is to demystify the operations of the court system and e-committee. This is a highly accessible website.".The judge also sought to highlight the positives of the virtual functioning of courts during the COVID-19 pandemic. The courts, mainly the Supreme Court, have been subjected to a lot of criticism during this time, he said. Referring to the number of cases decided by the courts during the lockdown, Chandrachud J said,."So often we hear the criticism, for a change let's talk about the positives of the judicial system. It is easy to criticize as it has the element of curiosity, but let us talk about the positives because this is the kind of work done by the Courts for the benefit of people."Justice Chandrachud.At a time when courts across the world were undertaking very few judicial hearings during lockdown periods, in India, we saw "hundreds of thousands of cases registered and disposed of", Justice Chandrachud added..The judge went on to say that the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) provides information as regards cases, pending and disposed of. This is not only for the benefit of the litigants, but also the judges, particularly the Chief Justices, for the administration and management of litigation. .The project also envisions provision of a "Covid Patch" for district judges. This provides for smart allocation of cases, keeping in view the fact that the country is gradually coming out of the lockdown in a phased manner and litigation is likely to increase but at the same time, health precautions need to be taken, the judge said..The e-inauguration was also attended by former Chairman of the e-committee, Justice (retd.) Madan Lokur, Attorney General for India KK Venugopal, the Secretary General of the Supreme Court Registry, members of the e-committee and judges from various courts across the country.