If the first e-Court opened in Ranchi on September 21 last facilitated the lower judiciary to hand over four-year jail to two former Bihar Chief Minister-lalu Prasad and Jagannath Mishra among others-right in the Birsa Munda Central prison through video-conferencing, their bail applications have apparently prompted Jharkhand High Court to explore the possibility of digitising the voluminous case records.
The sentencing through video-conferencing not only allowed the Civil Court authorities to concentrate on delivering the hassle-free judgement, but also the administration took a sigh of relief as the latter did not have to arrange for a huge posse of forces to control the supporters and media personnel. It cut on the expenses and also save time.
Both lalu and Mishra have been convicted by the Special (CBI) Court in the multi-million fodder scam, country's one of the most high-profile cases, and moved the Jharkhand High Court for bail. The high court has sought records from the lower court before taking a final call on lalu's plea. Significantly, the records and exhibits involving lalu run into over 8,500 pages and have been preserved in four trunks of 1x1 metre size. According to sources, they will be carried by a mini truck and a room has been assigned to store them in the high court. The size of records of other high profile convicts remains more or less the same.
If the records are digitised, the judge, while hearing either bail application or appeal, wanted to see any record, the same will be available on the monitor at a click of the mouse. So, they will not have to go through all the records to find the relevant papers. The Court is already equipped with facilities like scanners and computers to begin the task.
Acting Chief Justice D N Patel told The Pioneer that the digitisation of the case records is part of the ongoing e-court project, being run by the Supreme Court across the country. "We are planning to launch it soon, possibly by next week," Justice Patel, who also happens to be the head of the e-project committee, said.
He said that the success of Ranchi e-Court project was appreciated by the Supreme Court when he made a detailed presentation in New Delhi on September 28.
Justice Patel said that two more e-Courts are in the pipeline-one in Ranchi and another at Jamshedpur. He also said that he was soon going to introduce another advanced version of trial through video-conferencing for the accused lodged in the jails in mainly three states-Odisha, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal-but facing cases in the State. Such accused are mostly involved in extremist activities.
"We are soon going to hold a meeting with our counterparts in these states, which will also be attended by the Home Secretary and IT Secretary of the respective state," he added. "This will not only save time and money, but also ensure security of the accused and policemen as well," he added.
Presently, Ranchi e-court could conduct trial of prisoners lodged in any of the jails in the State and record the statement of witnesses, like doctors, police and forensic experts from any part of the State.It has also an inbuilt software to video-record the entire trial proceedings, which could be presented before the High Court if any judgement is challenged.lauding the positive approach of the State Government officials, the acting Chief Justice said that he proposed the Government to install video conferencing facilities at RIMS and Forensic Science laboratory in Ranchi so that the doctors and forensic experts could record their evidence right from their place of working. The facilities are to be extended to every Sadar Hospital in a phase wise manner.
Doctors get often transferred from one place to another by the time the court begins to conduct the trial of a case and sometimes it becomes difficult to get their evidence resulting into failure of the criminal cases in a court of law.
Sometimes, even the post mortem report does not reach the court within the stipulated 90 days within the timeframe the police have to file the chargesheet.
A case of culpable homicide cant be proved if not corroborated by the post mortem report.
"Besides, we have also tasked an agency to develop a software to digitise the post mortem report, which is hand-written and not legible easily. It will fasten the criminal justice system," he signed off.