CJI DY Chandrachud Inaugurates 10 District Court Digitization Hubs In Odisha; Lauds E-Initiatives Of Orissa HC

Digitization of records has been taken up by the High Court of Orissa, both at the High Court and the District Courts levels. Initially, 4 District Court Digitization Centres (DCDCs) were set up on a pilot basis in Cuttack, Ganjam, Sambalpur and Balasore on 30th April, 2021. As on 30th November 2022, 5,94,237 records of District Courts containing 5,58,13,771 pages have been scanned in the 4 DCDCs. Out of them 4,62,618 records containing 3,37,87,583 pages have been uploaded on the server.

After getting satisfying results from the 4 DCDCs, the High Court decided to upgrade these Centres into District Court Digitization Hubs (DCDH). Yesterday, DCDHs have been inaugurated in 10 more Districts namely Angul, Bhadrak, Jharsuguda, Kalahandi, Keonjhar, Koraput, Malkangiri, Mayurbhanj, Nayagarh and Sonepur. These hubs will cover digitization works of all the 30 districts of the state.

Each DCDH would be assigned with the digitization work of the nearby Districts. The objective of the DCDH would be to digitize the disposed of case records of the parent Districts as well as that of the nearby assigned Districts. The scanning work for the paperless courts of the said nearby Districts would also be taken up in the concerned DCDH.

While addressing the audience, the CJI applauded the ICT measures of the Orissa High Court and dubbed the digitization work undertaken by Chief Justice Muralidhar as the "role model" for all High Courts of the country. CJI emphasized on digitization as the most important step towards modernization of judiciary, especially the trial courts which are the backbone.

He further highlighted the benefits of digitization, such as easier access to records by authorized persons, organized information keeping, reduction of time to search documents, security of the documents and records etc. The CJI also stressed that digitization must be accompanied with pushing e-filing otherwise it would be difficult to go on digitizing everything which is filed in physical form in long run. Hailing the initiatives of the Orissa High Court, Justice Chandrachud said very soon the High Court would be mentoring the entire judiciary of the nation in the field of digitization.

While speaking on the occasion, Chief Justice Dr. S. Muralidhar stressed upon the need to utilise technology as an effective tool for imparting quality justice. He said, establishment of e-facilitation centres in all the districts and regular training of all the stake holders has helped a lot in reaping the benefits of the ICT initiatives like e-filing, e-payment of Court Fes, Virtual Hearing etc.

He also informed about the High Court's decision to provide touch screen laptops to every judicial officer of the State with a view to enable the officers to work paperless. He expressed satisfaction over the fact that the facility of e-filing is now available lawyers or a litigant of the remote corners of the State. He thanked the CJI for acknowledging the ICT works undertaken by the High Court of Orissa in the recently concluded conference of Chief Justices at Delhi.