Adding more to the facilities being provided to make legal process easier for the litigants, Case Information System (CIS) was introduced in Jharkhand High Court on Tuesday where advocates of petitioners as well as respondents will be informed about the status of their petitions time to time through Short Messaging Service (SMS).
A brainchild of Chief Justice R. Banumathi and Justice D.N. Patel, CIS was inaugurated by the Chief Justice here on Tuesday. “It is a hand to hand service where the advocate of the petitioner will receive SMS alerts regarding the status of the petition filed by him so that he can forward it to his clients. This system will decrease the dependency on assistants, which needed follow-up of the file,” said Advocate General RS Majumdar.
According to Majumdar, the system will be of great help to the advocates as well as their clients where they can know sitting on their chairs, whether the petition filed by him or her has been accepted, or whether it has any defect in it or not, which could be removed immediately. Earlier, it could be known only after checking the file, he added.
“People of Jharkhand are lucky enough to get this facility, as most of the other high courts do not have this facility. This is an outcome of the initiatives taken by the Chief Justice and other Judges of Jharkhand High Court,” said Majumdar. To begin with, only initial stages of the petition will be provided, but gradually the service will be extended till the case is disposed of, he added.
“For now, we can get information about the first three stages -- filing number, whether there are any defect in the petition or not and the case number, but by July this year, status at seven levels will be provided through SMS until the case is disposed of,” said Additional AG Jaiprakash. The other four stages include the status related to adjournment, hearing, disposal as well as the completion of certified copy after the case has been disposed of, he added.
According to Justice DN Patel, the advocates, to avail the service must have their mobile phone numbers registered with the high court mobile phone database. As many as 624 advocates have registered their mobile numbers so far, he said.
“The information will be provided to the advocates free of cost at least for one year, after which decision will be taken whether to charge anything for it or not at the central level,” said Justice DN Patel.
Although, care has been taken to remove errors in the system, Justice Patel said initially some defect might occur in it which will be sorted out soon.
