Virtual Courts: Harmony between Technology and Justice

Nowadays in this pandemic situation, many courts have legalized their proceedings virtually in the form of virtual courts. As the world has adapted to the ‘New Normal’ in aspects of economic activities in the corporate sector or work from home meetings through Skype, Zoom or Webinars, our Judiciary has taken a vigilant step towards safety of advocates, clients and judges by permitting virtual court proceedings as legal. There were much opposition towards this decision of courts, yet the fundamental principle in the administration of justice says that - courts must be open to the public. In India, E-Justice has been considered as an organ of E-Governance.

So what exactly a virtual court is? The government has created a special link for e-services for all the High Courts of India along with District and Taluka Courts of India .i.e. https://ecourts.gov.in/ecourts_home/ . E-courts shall enable to achieve various objectives-to help the judicial administration in streamlining cases, to reduce pendency and cost of litigation, to provide databases, to ensure E- Filing, E – notices, producing witnesses through video conferencing, digitally signed court orders, digitalized ADR. Due to Covid-19, the Supreme Court decided to continue with virtual court hearings for the time being in view of medical experts’ advice aimed at checking spread of COVID19 pandemic. This was decided in one of the case of - State of Maharashtra v Praful Desai where it was held that VC can be used for recording evidence. After which courts in the different parts of the world have resorted to video conferencing and tele justice facilities to render justice. The main motto is to serve justice. The Supreme Court categorically laid down guidelines on live-streaming of court proceedings, in the case of - Swapnil Tripathi v Union of India. Some of it are -

• The Apex Court directed both the High Courts and District Courts to temporarily adopt VC by drafting their own rules.

• The guidelines mandate courts to maintain a helpline where litigants can register their grievances regarding the audio and video quality of the online hearings.

• Courts are also required to make available video conferencing facilities to litigants who do not have access to this technology.

• The guidelines stipulate that consent of both the parties is necessary for recording evidence on video conferencing.

Countries such as Australia, China, the UK and the US have also taken similar video conferencing measures recently. The UK, from where India borrows its open courts principle, in fact, has been broadcasting court proceedings during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Justice Madan Lokur, on record, stated that the XIV Finance Commission had allocated a sum of Rs. 700 Crores to develop a common software for the purpose of case and court management. Various state governments had been urged to sanction money in this regard, but not much has seen the light of the day.

Digital Literacy

The lack of literacy in the population has also acted as a bane in digitalizing the database completely. Virtual courts and its system are difficult to adopt for many lawyers. This leads to an imaginary demarcation between the privileged and the non-privileged advocates in our country. Yet, we need to adapt to digitalization in our daily lives as it is only this which is going to be beneficial in the near future.

Reality of Virtual Courts

Well, virtual courts are adopted all over India, yet there have been many drawbacks for the same; some of them are - Virtual hearings do not permit the judge to scrutinize the facial expressions and bodily movement that are extremely instrumental in ascertaining the truth. It may also pose threats of identity thefts. But during Covid-19 times, virtual courts have become the need of an hour. The courts have found that people with hourly jobs or non-flexible schedules, could join remotely more easily from their job. It was also stated that the defendants and plaintiffs were far more likely to engage because of the familiarity of using video on their phones.

Whereas on the contrary, Virtual Hearings carried out are ‘far from satisfactory’ and disappointing for some of the courts. As there were many complaints lodged against lawyers on missing out on hearings, or call being disconnected halfway or not being conducted at all. Some advocates believe that virtual courts may improve the standard in legal profession markedly by reducing the cost of litigation substantially, along with making judicial system much more accessible to the poor and it should prevail even after pandemic. I think the adjudication of the matters in the presence of judges is more important than the debate on where hearings should be taken!!

Many of the law students must be familiar with virtual courts system even though the meetings or in-person meetings have been conducted in their respective colleges or universities; but there is a difference when it comes of live virtual hearings apart from that of moot courts in colleges.

Is there a threat to Open Courts?

Open courts implies that the public has access to witness court proceedings as a reporter, intern, spectator. Section 153B in CPC, section 327 in CrPC are legislative provisions governing the same.

Youth’s Favour

Virtual hearings have immensely turned tables for youngsters of our nation. As most of the youth being tech-savy, it is beneficial for all the young advocates of legal field. Since junior advocates face hostility in proving their points in front of senior advocates and this leads to snide remarks which obstruct them from openly making an argument by speaking over them. So with the help of online mode, it has been far easy for youth lawyers and upcoming future advocates, as they can finish their submissions virtually without interruption of senior to major extent. Do judges listen to young lawyers? Well, since the start of whole online process, judges are hearing junior lawyers patiently. This gives all the junior lawyers a sign of hope and boosts their will power for future arguments.

This outlook of virtual courts shows that they have been friendlier and relaxed. Also, there is no worry for judges, advocates or clients to have been facing crowded court room issues. Although, one of the lacking point is that virtual courts is that they have less intimating audiences compared to court rooms. Yet one major relief of time consuming filings or registry has been reduced immensely. As in open courts, clerks had to ensure about all filing and registry related documents, and here, in virtual courts – all these has become way more simpler in terms of uploading files or documents online in the site provided by respective courts.

The systematic outlook on Virtual Courts is a significant step in the journey towards virtual courts. However, this cannot be done at the cost of the open courts principle, which is a cornerstone of Indian judiciary. There may be short term issues in monitoring virtual court proceedings or hearings, but if we look at the bigger perspective, in the long run it will reboot the whole mechanism of judicial system. Our judiciary’s response to this pandemic, while commendable, is only the start of a long journey towards technology integration, which has to be done in a transparent and accountable manner.

A large portion of lawyers is likely to be averse to adapt to the new change owing to apprehensions of losing self-representation in the system. This requires a mindset change for all the relevant stakeholders in the legal community. More so, a uniform consensus must exist within the legal community that such a transition would be beneficial for the judicial system as a whole. The intent and ultimate aim of this exercise should be to augment access to justice to those in needs and also help the judiciary to reduce the burden of pending cases.

With this I sign off. Let Justice Prevail in every aspect.