To put the judicial process completely on e-track is a distant dream and it will take another two decades to have completely paperless courts in India, Chief Justice of India (designate) Justice Tirath Singh Thakur on Saturday said.
He indicated that the process of making the courts paperless has been started in some States but it has to go a long way as the judges at present are not very easy with taking up cases without having paper files in front of them.
In Chandigarh for the inauguration of Punjab and Haryana High Court’s newly constructed archive wing, Justice Thakur said it will require young tech savvy judges for implementation of paperless courts. Punjab and Haryana High Court last year had experimented with making two of its courts paperless for taking up urgent cases only.
In a set-back to a section of lawyers seeking separate High Court for Haryana, Justice Thakur said such proposal was not under consideration as of now. At the same time, Justice Thakur indicated that the same would be examined as and when it was placed before the Supreme Court.
Giving indications of early appointment of new judges in Higher Judiciary, Justice Thakur said that the revival of collegium system has been granted and efforts will be made to fill up the vacant posts of Judges in High Courts at the earliest. He admitted that shortage of Judges in courts has been a hindrance in bringing down the pendency and provide timely justice.
Applauding the High Court administration for the completion of archive building, Justice Thakur said that the Supreme Court too needs such a separate archive building as the record rooms of Supreme Court are crowded with 60-65 years old judicial records, and the staff has to work in unhygienic and unhealthy conditions there.
Avoiding question on his future plans as the Chief Justice of India, Justice Thakur said that he had certain things in mind and would discuss with appropriate authority when the time came.
Justice SJ Vazifdar, the Acting Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court informed that it was Justice Thakur, who had taken the initiative of building a separate Centralised Judicial Record Building, when he was the Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court.
He said that the judicial record in the archive building has been digitalised and there will be not need to carry the record to the courts from the record rooms as the records will be available for judicial process online.
Most of the judges of the Punjab and Haryana High Court were present in the inaugural function.