Digital integration a procedural norm: Justice Nath

Technology has not replaced constitutional institutions but has changed the environment in which their legitimacy is formed, Supreme Court Justice Vikram Nath said on Friday, noting that digital integration is no longer an “add-on” but a procedural norm.

He was delivering the 21st Justice PD Desai Memorial Lecture on ‘Open Justice in Digital Republic’ here.

Justice Nath stated that the live streaming of court proceedings strengthens accountability within the system, widens access for strangers, keeps an institution connected to its people, and can become one of the most effective instruments to improve legal literacy in India.

“Citizens today learn, debate, criticise and participate through phones and platforms. Public accountability is increasingly shaped in digital spaces. Technology has not replaced constitutional institutions, but it has changed the environment in which their legitimacy is formed,” Justice Nath said.

The digital is no longer an add-on, but part of the procedural norms, he said, adding that openness becomes a privilege of geography and resources if we measure it only with physical access.

“If technology can extend the public gallery without compromising dignity and fairness, openness becomes closer to a constitutional promise that is usable to the citizen at large. Once openness can travel through technology, the real question is how we design it responsibly,” he said.

Justice Nath pointed out that a constitutional idea becomes meaningful only when it is translated into an institutional habit, and this needs planning, discipline and a design that ordinary people can actually use.

He further said that Gujarat’s experience with live-streaming court proceedings is a valuable case study.

Justice Nath served as the chief justice of the Gujarat High Court when it launched live proceedings on YouTube on October 26, 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown, becoming the first high court in the country to do so. It went on to launch live streaming of full court in July 2021.

Now, 19 high courts have made live streaming operational, he said, adding that while the broader ecosystem is clearly expanding, it also shows unevenness because implementation and quality differ widely.

Streaming exists in many places, but the experience can be difficult for ordinary viewers, as links can be hard to locate, streaming can be intermittent, etc., he said.

“Gujarat has stood out. It has pursued live streaming with simplicity that respects and prioritises users. Proceedings are streamed on an official YouTube channel in a manner that allows citizens to find courtrooms with ease and to follow proceedings without needing insider guidance,” he said.

The SC judge said that while live streaming is only the first step, the next frontier is comprehension, accessibility and authenticity, the ability of citizens to follow what is happening, to locate it later and to trust that what is being seen is genuine.

And this is where artificial intelligence will increasingly enter the courtroom ecosystem, he said.

“But it is important to emphasise that AI is a tool — it can assist the system but cannot replace the human responsibility that lies at the heart of adjudication, especially in the context of the Indian ecosystem. A judge does not decide by pattern recognition alone. A judge decides by listening, by applying legal principles to contesting facts, and by doing justice within the justice of reason,” he said.

AI can, however, greatly deepen open justice if used responsibly, he added.

It can generate captions of live proceedings, create searchable transcripts, assist translations across Indian languages, improve access for persons with disabilities, and help organise archives so that citizens can locate relevant portions of a hearing without watching hours of footage, he said.

“In that sense, it can make openness more intelligible and more usable,” he said, at the same time warning that AI also brings real dangers.

He noted that generative tools can hallucinate, invent case logs, fabricate quotations and produce material that looks authoritative.

“In a digital republic, the danger is not only secrecy but also counterfeit transparency — the appearance of authenticity without authenticity itself. That is why open justice will increasingly require infrastructure,” he added.

Justice Nath said that the idea of open justice is older than any technology and deeper than a mere rule that a courtroom should be open to the public.

“Open justice is understood as a constitutional method of exercising judicial power. Courts have a duty to decide disputes that involve liberty, livelihood, property, reputation and rights. ...A constitutional democracy insists that adjudication by a court must not be done in secrecy; the process must be capable of public scrutiny. Courts do not derive authority from secrecy; they derive authority from reasoned public work,” he said.

Open justice is also broader than mere entry into a courtroom, he said.

“It has several elements, each of which contributes to its legitimacy. Entitlement of people to attend court as a spectator; full, fair and accurate reporting; duty of judges to give reasoned decisions; public access to judgments,” Justice Nath said.