‘Talent Is Not Monopoly Of Those Who Stay In Metropolitan Areas’: CJI Chandrachud While Inaugurating 'Virtual High Courts' In Odisha

Words of Appreciation

He said, under the leadership of Chief Justice Dr. S. Muralidhar, the Orissa High Court has proved itself to be a ‘trailblazer’ in the field of adopting technology for dispensation of justice.

“It [the Orissa High Court] has digitized records, inaugurated paperless courts, established Vulnerable Witness Deposition Centres (VWDCs), prepared a digital records’ room [the RRDC] and much more in a short span of time. Two years ago, most of these e-initiatives may have seemed like a distant dream. The common citizen would have chuckled at the thought of Orissa High Court operating in every district of the State. Perhaps they would have considered these e-initiatives a part of a scene from a futuristic movie.”

Recognising the ‘Unsung Heroes’

He said that it is truly a moment of celebration for the Orissa High Court and the residents of the State and called for recognising the contributions made by the persons who oversee the day-to-day functioning of the e-initiatives, i.e. IT technicians, clerks etc. He further said, they are the ones who operate from the back-end and make the system truly functional. He termed them as ‘unsung heroes’ of technological revolution in the justice delivery system.

Benefits of the VHCs

He highlighted the benefits of the Virtual High Courts and said that advocates and parties-in-person, who are not comfortable with using the e-facilities, can submit hardcopies of their petitions to the staff members who will e-file them subsequently.

“Of all the services that will be available, the most exceptional is the physical or in-person Court rooms in every district. These rooms will be equipped with video-conferencing facilities and will provide professional atmosphere for the advocates to appear. Advocates need not rely on their personal facilities to appear before the Virtual High Court. Crucially, their establishment ensures no advocate will be denied the advantages of virtual courts for want of funds or for any other reason,” he added.

He said that virtual courts have given new meaning to the term ‘accessibility’. He also underlined that Odisha will be the first state in the nation which will have High Court accessible from every district. Resultantly, most of the litigants will not have the need to travel out of their hometown to pursue a case in the High Court.

He encouraged the lawyers to take benefit out of the facilities and said:

“Appearing before an Appellate Court requires somewhat different skill-set as compared to appearing before a Court of first instance. The establishment of these virtual courts will permit lawyers, who previously appeared only before the Courts of first instance to hone an additional set of skills.”

Decentralization of Opportunities

He stated that though pragmatic concerns prevent the High Courts from operating in-person benches from every district, there is no denying that extending the reach of High Courts through Virtual Courts decentralizes the participation in the administration of justice.

“This is also the case with the Supreme Court. When the Supreme Court began operating virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic, I noticed that bright young lawyers from across the country began to appear before us. I also noticed that more women appeared before us because virtual hearings permitted them to retain the flexibility that their schedules demanded as a result of the unequal burden of their work. I hope the advent of virtual courts will encourage a greater number of male lawyers also to shoulder responsibilities related to the home and the family.”

The CJI said that these Virtual High Courts will ensure that bright lawyers from nook and corner of the state get opportunity to showcase their advocacy skills before the High Court of Orissa.

“Equally importantly, we are ensuring that the development of the Bar takes place all over the State of Odisha. Talent has no geographical boundaries. There are talented people who are situated across our States. Many of them due to resources or the lack of awareness are not able to set-up practice in seat of the High Court. They should not be denied the opportunity of self-development, of self-evolution.”

Translation of Judgments to Regional Languages

He apprised the audience about the newly adopted initiative of the Supreme Court to translate the judgments of the Apex Court from English to different regional languages.

“With machine learning and Artificial Intelligence assisted software, we have today sophisticated tools and instruments to ensure that our judgments which are delivered in English can reach out to common citizens, in the language which they understand,” the CJI said.

He expressed hope that Chief Justice Muralidhar will take steps to facilitate translation of judgments of the Apex Court as well as of the Orissa High Court into Odia. He said it is the new model of justice delivery which the justice delivery system tries to adopt wherein the Courts will reach out to the people instead of people reaching out to the Court.

He also informed the audience about Supreme Court's plans to utilise speech-to-text aided AI software. He said that Supreme Court has sought assistance from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras to avail the AI-assisted translation software. He hoped that the software can be used in the course of both civil and criminal trials.

“We can adopt speech-to-text software so as to facilitate the transcribing of evidence which is deposed to in the course of criminal trial from the language in which the evidence is deposed into every language we want it to be translated," the CJI said.

Encouragement To Use e-SCR

He urged the audience, which consisted of judicial officers and lawyers from across the State of Odisha to use the recently launched e-Supreme Court Reports (e-SCR) portal where nearly 34,000 judgments of the Supreme Court are made available free of cost in digital form with an elastic search pattern. He also said that close to 2000 judgments have been now translated to Hindi and the top Court is in the process of translating the judgments into every other Indian language.