Judicial IT Infrastructure: A Vision

Background: Information Technology is going to be the back bone of judiciary. As per the Policy and Action Plan Document-Phase II of the E-Courts Project of the e-committee of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India(herein after referred to as Policy Action Document), the following functions will have to be discharged by the Hon’ble High Courts:

1. Project Management and Monitoring Mechanism

2. Procurement of Hardware Resources and their deployment as per the specifications approved by Hon’ble Supreme Court e-committee.

3. Periphery Software Development and deployment for e-CIS to suit the requirements of the state.

4. Managing the networking and data including monitoring the quality and completeness of data available in CIS.

5. Training, deployment and management of the end staff who will manage the e-CIS at court level.

At present, our Information Technology Initiatives working on judicial side are (a) Case Information System(CIS) which is the back bone of IT Infrastructure initiatives and is basically an information management system regarding the filing, processing, managing and disposal of cases in court (b) E-Courts for Subordinate Judiciary which ensures flow of case management information to the public (c) National Judicial Data Grid(NJDG) which is basically a Management Information System(MIS) for CIS (d) Mobile Initiatives such as ecourts, JUSTIS etc. which are basically information dissemination systems for specified population like judicial officers (e) Video Conferencing equipments for judiciary. In addition, there are upcoming applications, initiatives like Integrated Criminal Justice System, Virtual courts, E-filing, NSTEPS etc. which gives more spread to the IT initiatives of the judiciary and will bring more public interaction with out IT initiatives. Salary of staff is managed to SPARK and office expenditure is managed through BIMS. There are also other administrative IT tools like e-office deployed in other administrative offices but have not yet deployed in judiciary, which will help the judicial administration also to go paperless.

It can be seen that the basic design of all these initiatives is of a hub and spoke; CIS is acting as the hub for all the activities and all other applications/initiatives will seamlessly integrate with CIS and work by giving and taking information from CIS. CIS being an initiative of Hon’ble e-committee of Supreme Court intending to give a common platform for all judiciary related information, one High Court cannot by its own make any changes to the structure of CIS or any existing initiatives and hence all future IT infrastructure initiatives at the level of Hon’ble High Court will have to be taken keeping this aspect in mind. Further, CIS being basically an information management portal, has been designed to capture information and its primary aim is not to ease the work of the judiciary but to capture and disseminate information regarding the judiciary. Hence, by design, CIS is not going to ease the work of judiciary or ensure more effective dispensation of justice. This is at the same time an advantage and disadvantage of the current judicial IT initiatives. It is a disadvantage since it will not ease work, and it is an advantage because it gives an accurate picture of the state of affairs in judiciary without any significant change in operating procedures. Any initiative that changes current operating procedures requires much more extensive training and change management mechanisms. While creating a vision document, it is most humbly suggested that all the necessary requirements to ensure effective administration of justice shall be kept in mind, and moving to the aim of paperless judicial administration should be balanced with the need to ensure accuracy, sufficient back up capacity for our servers and protection of existing workforce.

Software Infrastructure part of Judicial IT Infrastructure:

Objectives:

• Primary aim of the Judicial IT initiatives should be to ensure effective access to speedy justice by effectively managing the judicial work.
• Judicial IT initiatives should also aim at automation that would reduce technical or mechanical aspects of judicial functioning, thereby increasing efficiency of the judicial functioning.
• Reduction of the use of paper in judicial work as far as possible by deploying tools like e-office for administrative work, SPARK and BIMS for financial aspects with CIS for case management so that data where ever given once need not be replicated again manually should also be another aim of Judicial IT initiatives.

Automation:

• As far as possible all communications, summons, warrants, reports etc. issued by the court should be digitally created using the data available in the CIS automatically upon the judicial officer making an order in that regard in the judicial software and digitally transmitted to the concerned outside authorities by email or through the software of the department concerned. There should also be facility to receive reports required to be filed before the court from other authorities in response to the communication issued by the court digitally, as authenticated by the digital signature including aadhar authenticated signature of the respective authority.
• Judicial Softwares being developed should be capable of automating the judicial work without affecting the discretion. For example, if instead of manually providing dates for each case, Software can itself put the date on a pre-defined logic, based on Case Flow Management System, with facility to manually override the system provided dates, and to automatically move from stage to stage based on compliance/non compliance of statutory requirements with facility for judicial intervention on application by parties or suo moto, it can go a long way in managing day to day work in courts and court staff can be utilized for more productive work.
• Mobility:
• Outbreak of pandemics like CoViD19 have made the entire government machinery think of avoiding physical workforce. When designing judicial IT infrastructure for the future, manpower portability and the ability of the workforce to augment their work even from outside geographic parameters should be taken into account. Hence, all equipment procured should be capable of having optimal performance both within a specified geographical location and away from such specified geographical locations.
• In future, physical positioning of parties, including litigants and lawyers inside the court hall may go and instead, the parties and lawyers may log in from the outside locations. Even entire trial proceedings may be done by video conferencing. This would require connecting outside devices to judicial IT networks. Hence appropriate security protocols should be developed for this purpose.
• Going forward, mobile and hand held devices will replace the computers. Police officers are currently using softwares like e-beat to connect with officers while on work outside police stations. Judicial Officers such as Magistrates also will have to work from outside court premises from their home or at other locations for works like remanding prisoners and preparing dying declarations. Hence, judicial softwares should be so tuned that requests for outside works such as remanding prisoners, making dying declarations can be made online, and the judicial officers can access such requests and act upon the same online. If remand warrants can be also generated and send to prisons online, authenticated by the digital signature of the judicial officers or by bio-metric/finger print/aadhar authentication, it would go a long way in ensuring their accuracy. This would require interaction between portals of police, judiciary and the prisons department, and hence ICJS modules should be developed to facilitate such aspects. This would also require that the judicial softwares should be made available outside court premises. Hence, appropriate protocols permitting connection of judicial software in the personal communication devices of judicial officers should be developed. As I understand, there is a demand from the police and prison authorities for such facilities to be incorporated in judicial softwares.
• Equipments and Hardware:
• The available infrastructure should be put to optimum use and overcrowding of court rooms or offices with multiple electronic equipment with same/similar functioning should be avoided.
• While purchasing equipment, equipments that aesthetically fit with the available courtroom atmosphere should be selected and when ever selection of the equipment for a particular court is made, the views of the officer and staff therein should also be solicited, as far as possible.
• All computers and printers should be networked, and where ever possible Multi functional printers with enabled print/scan/fax/copy facility connected in a network, should be deployed to put the available printers/scanners to optimum use. If there are more courts in one court complex, all the printers in different courts should be interconnected with sufficient privileged access facility incorporated so that where ever printers in one court is not functioning, printers in other courts can be used.
• Softwares:
• CIS should be understood as an information management tool and it should not be looked upon as an all out solution for judicial IT requirements. Softwares which speak to and provide necessary inputs and take output from CIS should be developed.
• While developing such softwares, data security and measures to prevent breach of data security should also be given prime importance.
• Currently the same data will have to be entered at multiple points, for example the data in proceeding sheets also need to be reproduced in CIS. If such multiple data entry can be avoided, a lot of judicial time can be saved. 
• Instead of using separate proceeding sheets, judicial orders should be directly typed into either by judicial officers or at their dictation by typists into judicial softwares.
• Predictive text should be enabled so that similar short orders can be typed with ease.
• Handwriting enabled tablets should be given to judicial officers, and bench clerks so that instead of typing, orders can easily be written in the tablets.
• Digital signature and water marking should be enabled for judicial orders so that compliance of copy applications can be speeded up/dispensed with.
• E-filing, E- Stamping and digital payment protocols should be enabled at all courts and all the payments in and out of the court should go in digital manner.
• All documents filed in court should be filed in digital formats, so that at all the documents can be made available at all stages of the trial and in different courts simultaneously, without affecting the trial at lower courts when the records are send to higher courts.
• S. 275 of Criminal Procedure Code enables recording of evidence of witnesses by audio-video recording. This enables witness testimonies to be recorded in audio visual mode, rather than by writing them by hand or by typing the testimonies, and the video recording can be used as evidence by putting it in a password protected mode, so that access privilege can be managed to ensure tampering.
• Proviso to S. 161(3) Cr. P.C., provides that statements under S. 161 Cr. P.C. can be recorded by audio-video electronic forms. Once the process of investigation is complete, the electronically prepared FIS, other case records and entire video files with metadata including video files of s. 161 Cr. P.C. statements can be shared with the court along with report under s.173(8) Cr. P.C. A copy of this file can be shared with the accused digitally with or without copying facility. If any files contain sensitive material that may affect privacy of individuals, the investigation agency can indicate the same and the said file will not be shared. Upon completion of formality when the case comes up for trial, the witnesses can be cross examined based on their video recorded testimony, including the data of analysis of emotional aspects. These depositions can also be recorded using facial recognition camera so that there can be a real time analysis of the emotional aspects (demeanor) revealed on such recording.
• Service of copies to the accused and lack of clarity of copies are currently one of the factors affecting the disposal time. If all copies of documents can be electronically given to the opposite side, it can save a lot of time in judicial proceedings. If the softwares are so developed that while E-filing, either by the advocates or the police officials, the scanned copy of the documents are uploaded, it becomes easily shareable. The opposite party, upon entering appearance, can be given username and password to access the case records and case progress details. All documents filed by both parties becomes automatically available to opposite side, and the issue of not receiving proper copies of applications and records can be resolved for ever. When ever a party files a document, he should produce the original before the office of the court, and get the verified and returned. If any party want the original document to be produced before the court, then such party can utilise the provisions of O. XI CPC or Chapter VII Cr. P.C. respectively. Similarly, if all material objects are video graphed and photographed with three dimensional measures, and these videos and photographs are produced along with case records, while the original object be either returned, or disposed off as per rules, it will save a lot of space in court rooms and these documents/photographs/video-graphs can be made available at all stages of the case. If amendments are required in the rules for this, the same should also be envisaged.
• If time can be assigned for hearing of cases in judicial softwares, with automatic advancement where the case is disposed early and automatic adjournments if the case takes more time, it would help in managing the judicial time. For example, if the parties can specify time taken by them for arguments, and the software automatically gives a date based on the available time on board, and if the opposite side is having inconvenience, they can specify the same in the software, so that another date is assigned, it will help to manage judicial time. If the cases take lesser time, cases posted subsequently can be advanced, with facility to the lawyers to show their inconvenience, in which case, the case will be automatically removed to another available time slot, it will help to manage the time of both judges and lawyers. Similarly if a case takes more time than usual, the lawyers would get a notification for taking further time slots, and if such time slots are not available in a given date, the case can be moved to such dates on which the time slots are available.
• Automatic Text Summarisation tools to summarise pleadings from the uploaded documents can be made use of to assist the judicial officers in preparation of judgment and orders.
• Judicial Officers should be allowed to update and upload their own templates for various orders/judgments in the judicial IT softwares. In the alternative, if the Hon’ble High Court can fix a uniform template for all types of orders/judgments, the same has to be made available in the judicial IT softwares.
• There should be a facility to interlink various judicial and non judicial softwares, so that data commonly required in both softwares need not be again entered.
• Data Security:
• Currently there is no security or inter linking mechanism to various softwares including CIS and SPARK. This is partly because of lack of awareness of the staff and partly because while designing the softwares, logins are created not based on actual work but based on designation. For example, in SPARK bills are prepared by clerical staff using DDO’s log in. Going forwards, creation of login profiles based on job requirement, and creating robust features like bio-metric/fingerprint log in, with auditing features will be required since with the coming into force of Personal Data Protection Act, the responsibility of the intermediaries will be increased and there will be requirement for restricting access to personal data and for auditing the access points.
• While developing an IT protocol for judiciary, it must be kept in mind that technology grows much faster than rules. Rules made with the current technology in mind may soon get outdated. Concept of data ownership, security and even work environments are subject to very fast changes. Hence it is most humbly submitted that Sufficient leeway should be given in the new rules for adapting to better and more effective technology quick without wasting time.
• Cadre Wise Initiatives:A permanent IT Cadre: Ideally, a permanent IT Team should be able to manage all these functions under the supervision of the Hon’ble High Court. Only those who have actual work experience in the subordinate judiciary will be in a position to ensure that the IT resources for subordinate judiciary will be put to optimum use. Unless the permanent cadre is comprised completely of the officers and staff who has experience in the functioning of Subordinate judiciary, the IT activities envisaged cannot be put to optimum use.
• Registry: 
• There should be a Separate Registry for IT Strategy consisting of (1) Five Deputy Registrars, one each for each of the functions as envisaged by the Policy Action Document. The Deputy Registrars should be invariably serving judicial officers of the Cadre of Munsiff Magistrate having at least 3 years experience as a judicial officer (2) two Joint Registrars, who should be invariably serving judicial officers of the Cadre of Sub-Judge one responsible for Hardware and maintenance related issues and one responsible for software and training related issues, and (3) One Registrar-(IT Strategy and Implementation), who should be invariably a District Judge having at least 3 years experience. Registry for IT Strategy and Implementation shall be responsible for all the activities relating to Information Technology management, the procurement and deployment of IT resources and their timely maintenance and training and deployment of staff members who will be end users of IT resources.
• Permanent IT Cadre shall function in a hub and spoke manner. The Registry for IT Strategy and Implementation will be the centralized IT hub for procurement development maintenance of IT resources. It will be supported by personnel in each Court Complexes who will be responsible for the actual ground level implementation of the Strategy. Such persons will work under the general direction of Registry of IT Strategy and Implementation, but will be subject to the administrative Control of Hon'ble District Judge. Where the Court Complex is not in the district center, such personnel shall also be answerable to the Senior most Judicial Officer of that center. The data and logs relating to all centralized equipments such as servers shall be the responsibility of these personnel. They shall maintain separate electronic logs for the purpose.
• In addition there shall be two persons in each Court who can either be a clerical staff belonging to Permanent IT Cadre or who have been given specialized training by the Registry. One such person shall be responsible for and will be the one point contact for deployment, management and maintenance of hardware resources and shall act as the Electronic Equipment Officer, who shall be responsible for keeping a register of all electronic equipments in the said court. The other person shall be responsible for managing the software issues arising in the said court and give training and assistance to other staff members on an on going basis on the relevant software as per directions of the Registry of IT Strategy and Implementation. These two personnel shall be the contact for all hardware and software related matters respectively in the individual court level and shall liaison with the personnel at the District level and Registry level to manage ground level issues. 
• Staff members from civil and criminal wings of the subordinate judiciary can to be appointed on deputation basis initially. Only upon proven competency should be absorbed permanently into the IT Cadre. Ideally only persons with at least 1 year experience in the subordinate judiciary shall be deputed to the permanent IT Cadre. 
• The personnel selected to the permanent IT cadre including the Deputy Registrars, Joint Registrars and Registrar’s shall be given custom made training on software and hardware development and deployment with the help of NIC/CDIT. After assessing their aptitude, they should be deployed either in the software wing or in the hardware wing. 
• A team of at least 20 officers including staff shall be retained at the Registry. Each Deputy Registrar shall have a team of at least 4 staff members under them responsible for the activities in their domain. The there shall be at least 2 officers at the District level one for managing issues relating to hard ware issues at the District level and one for managing issues relating to software.
• Where ever possible, assistance of experts from the field of IT and computer science including internship projects should be availed for which the policy should be made.