CJI DY Chandrachud Launches ‘Neutral Citation’ For High Court And Supreme Court Judgements

To explore the possible ways of use of technology in the legal system a two-day National Conference on Digitization, Paperless Courts and e-Initiatives was organised by the Orissa High Court on Saturday at the Odisha Judicial Academy, Cuttack.

The conference was inaugurated by the Chief Justice of India Dr. Justice Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud, in the presence of Justice Rajesh Bindal, Judge, Supreme Court of India and Dr. Justice S. Muralidhar, Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court.

Implementation of the Action Plan for Phase-III of e-Courts Project of the Supreme Court of India shall be the focal point of the Conference. All the High Courts of the country are taking part in the Conference through their Judges and Judicial Officers. Also, the delegates from the Department of Justice, Government of India and the e-Committee, Supreme Court of India are also attending the Conference.

‘Neutral Citation’ For Indian Judiciary

The ‘Neutral Citation for the Indian Judiciary’ was inaugurated on the occasion by the CJI. Neutral Citation System is an initiative of CJI Chandrachud, aimed at evolving a mechanism for standardizing case law citations.

The lawyers and Judges currently rely on the law reports and legal websites to access case laws. Different law reports adopt different patterns to identify a case law which often leads to confusion. Neutral Citation System is a uniform and secure methodology for identifying and citing decisions of the orders and judgments of the Supreme Court and High Courts.

In this system, each decision (both reportable and non-reportable) of the Supreme Court and High Courts would have a citation of its own approved by the respective Courts, independent of the Law Reports. The system will make it easier for Courts to publish the orders and judgments in public domain by providing a consistent method of citing judicial decisions which will facilitate easy identification, referencing and retrieval thereof.

Thus, case laws, which were so far accessible only to the subscribers of private law reporters, would now be available to everyone free of cost through Neutral Citations.

Cloud Storage Of Court Records

While addressing the gathering, the CJI said that the judiciary would be moving to cloud storage for storing digitized court records, live-streaming recordings, electronic evidence and establishing paperless courts which will ensure standardization of data security and privacy norms.

He said that building trustworthy digital repositories is one of the primary focus areas of Phase III of the e-Court project and this will involve digitization of the entire court records, both legacy records and pending cases.

In Phase III, he said, it is proposed to digitize 3108 crore pages as this is necessary in light of the physical storage constraints that are being faced across the country. He also emphasized on simultaneous shifting to e-filing along with digitization and ensuring that further physical output is not created which is not already digitized, and for this, a mechanism to preserve born-digital data has to be built that will be received through e-filing and through ICJS which will have FIRs and charge sheets.

Visit Of Delegates To RRDC & Museum Of Justice

Record Room Digitization Centre (RRDC) of the High Court of Orissa, which has been termed by the CJI as a role model for the other High Courts in the field of digitization, was a talking point during the Conference.

It was an occasion for the Judges of all the High Courts of the Country attending the Conference, to visit and study the process undertaken in RRDC. The visiting Judges and Judicial Officers from across the country were also fascinated to see how the centuries old judicial documents are being preserved in the Centre for Judicial Archives and those are being showcased in the Museum of Justice.