March of technology- Advocates Clerks Facing A Humanitarian Issue, Will Help Them To Develop Soft skills So That They Can Be Part Of The E-Court Project: Justice Chandrachud

The chairman of the E-Committee was delivering the key-note address at the Digital Distribution of the eCertificates for the Master Trainers.

He shared that the special drive outreach calendar for 2022 has identified 10 categories of stakeholders, including public, litigants, law students through the law schools, advocates, advocate clerks, police officials and prison authorities.

Justice Chandrachud said that the next step is to start training law students in the law colleges because "we must have digital programmes to impart training and digital literacy to the law students so that they become comfortable with the use of technology"

"We are developing a special programme for visually challenged court staff and judicial officers. That is very critical to our accessibility initiative. We are developing a special outreach programme for the marginalised sections- women, LGBTQ, and persons with disabilities. Justice Moushumi Bhattacharya of the Calcutta High Court is developing a comprehensive module on how we can use technology and the knowledge component of the e-courts project to facilitate this particular initiative", continued Justice Chandrachud.

"It has been proposed to have the Outreach programmes closely coordinated with the NJA and the SJAs. I will soon be writing to all the High Courts with the E committee calendar of 2022. I request all high courts to inject at least two e-court programmes per month in their training programmes through the State judicial Academies to accelerate the ICT awareness and digital capacity building. We are conscious of the regular calendar of each Academy. The training may be shifted from the conventional model. It can be held in 30 to 45 minute sessions during the working days so as to bring about minimum dislocation in the conventional training program...", expressed the judge.

At the outset, the judge narrated how with the sudden onset of the pandemic, our judiciary answered the call of the pandemic with the judicial infrastructure created through the e-courts project, immediately shifting to the digital space through video conference hearings, e-filing, E-payments and virtual courts- "A serious need was felt to take the advocates on board as there existed a great digital divide and a great amount of digital illiteracy. It all actually started in the meeting of the E committee which was held on 3 July 2020. AG K. K. Venugopal suggested the need for imparting training for advocates on the basic digital usage and the e-court services. Based on the suggestion, the E committee passionately formulated a special drive in ICT for advocates and clerks."

Justice Chandrachud elaborated that 2 significant steps were taken by the E committee- first, creating advocate master trainers for the taluka, district and state bar associations across India, and second, creating awareness programmes for advocates and advocate clerks in all regional languages across India. "Because we do believe, in the e-committee, that our mission would not be completed unless we get these important stakeholders on board. Very often, it is believed that the work of e-committee would be in the realm of hardware and software. But we have gone beyond. We think it is very important for us to develop soft skills as well. Training and knowledge component is very important in the e-courts project. We are working simultaneously on both", said the judge.

"We have 4050 advocate master trainers. The committee has identified the technically qualified advocate master trainers. 4050 advocates were nominated from bar associations across the country, representing the taluka level, district level and state-level bar Associations. They were trained in 96 training groups in five zones with an average of about 50 to 55 advocates per group. The training to the advocates was imparted by 461 judicial officer master trainers of the E committee. The E committee has enriched its technical human resources with these 4000 master trainers who represent every taluka, district and state level bar Association. They have become an ICT helpdesk for their bar associations. These master trainers will impart basic computer related training to other advocates", continued Justice Chandrachud.

"Our advocates' awareness programme in regional languages has a reach of 2,21,000 views, which would have reached much higher now. As part of the special drive initiative of the E committee, the advocates and advocates' clerks awareness programmes in regional languages were conducted all over the country. As of 31st December, 2021, the awareness outreach programmes for advocates and advocates' clerks reached two lakh. The YouTube links of the statewide advocate awareness programmes is uploaded on the E committee website", told Justice Chandrachud.

The judge emphasised on how important it is to train the clerks of the advocates- "Advocates, yes. But particularly the clerks of the advocates. I have recently received representations from across the country, including from my own parent High Court- Bombay High Court. There is a feeling on the part of the advocates' clerks that with this march of technology, will it render them obsolete. The advocates' clerks depend upon the court system for earning their livelihood. This is really a humanitarian issue at stake and I do believe that it is important that we help them develop alternative skills, supplementary skills, new skills, so that they can become able contributors in the e-courts project, so that they can continue to do what they are doing and improve their productivity and revenue generating capacity also. Because unless we get the advocates' clerks on board as much as the advocates, I do believe that we will come up against a roadblock", asserted the judge.

Justice Chandrachud explained the scope of the advocates' training programme- "The electronic case management tools for advocates were covered in the advocate training programmes. Our advocate training programmes cover how to get the e-courts services 24/7- Simple questions like that- How do you get causelist, judgments, orders and case status, How do you get SMSes and emails on court listing, How does one download and use the e-courts services mobile app, How do you get case status or cause list or orders on the mobile app, The 'my cases' option for digital case management through the mobile app, the Export and import- the back up option of the mobile app, the QR scan option and its utility for advocates... kiosks, E Seva Kendra, digital display boards, online certified copies, e-payment of fines, e-payment portals of court fee and civil deposits..."

The judge said that though with the able assistance of the department of justice of the government of India and the Supreme Court, the E committee has put into place various features which are being developed ably by the NIC, the point of the matter is that "we cannot just create these facilities" and that "we have to propagate these facilities, make lawyers understand how simple these facilities are to use and then make them an integral part of their lives". "How to appear in video conferencing- it is very simple, we must make sure that lawyers know how to appear, how to scan documents and make PDF files, sharing documents in the court, uploading documents, the must-know E court websites", said Justice Chandrachud.

He shared that the next aspect of the training has been to reach out to chief Justices and High Court judges and district judges through the national judicial Academy- "We have held ICT workshops for the chief justices of all the High Court. We have had special sessions for High Court judges and district judges. We had a Workshop on National Judicial Data Grid as a court and case management tool for High Court judges and was conducted at the Madhya Pradesh, Patna, Allahabad and Odisha HCs"

"The next element is training for the court staff. We have launched a nationwide court staff training programme and as of date 70,349 members of the court staff across India have been trained. Under the E committee module, we trained one staff member from each court in the district judiciary throughout the country. As a result, they act as in-house district system administrators", continued the judge.

"Other training programs include workshops on cybercrime and electronic evidence. 99 cyber crime master trainer judicial officers have been specially trained and certified by the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel national Police Academy at Hyderabad. Recently, a three day online course in cybercrime and digital evidence was held. Our statistics as of date on online awareness and training programmes indicates that 3.67 lakh people have been reached during the pandemic between May 2021 and December 2021. The E committee has conducted 117 training and awareness programmes covering advocates, clerks, master trainers amongst advocates, High Court judges, District Judges, judges of the district district judiciary, court Staff, technical staff and law students", shared the judge.

"We have developed training manuals and brochures and video tutorials in regional languages. A manual on the E courts services mobile app is available in 14 regional languages. We have a step-by-step guide for e-filing which is written in English and translated into 10 regional languages. 12 e-filing tutorials have been developed in seven regional languages. Brochures on advocate registration and e-filing have been prepared and 14 regional languages.A Brochure on e sewa kendra and e- payments has been prepared in English", told the judge.

Justice Chandrachud especially congratulated Kerala HC CJ S. Manikumar, Justice A. Muhamed Mushtaque and Justice Raja Vijayaraghavan for since the launch of the e-filing 3.0 version on 1 January 2022, in the district courts of Kerala, over 14,000 advocates registered, over 9000 cases were filed, over 86,000 documents were uploaded and 1000 oaths were recorded over video.