New Delhi: Acting Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court Justice Manmohan on Friday said that technology has to be harnessed to improve the legal system.
He was speaking at the inauguration of a ‘pilot hybrid court with a speech-to-text facility for evidence recording’ and the launch of a ‘digital court application for judicial officers to access all e-filed cases’ in the Tis Hazari district court.
"We have to use and harness technology to improve the legal system to ensure that the people who are accused of crimes are brought to book and the delays have to be cut short… the only way to ensure that the system works properly is to ensure that good technology is brought into the system," Justice Manmohan said.
He said that the speech-to-text facility for evidence recording was a "very powerful tool", having the potential of becoming a "game-changer".
"Today when I sit in the court and decide matters, one of the things which strikes me when I look at the big picture is that today technology is being used to circumvent the laws to break the laws to promote infringement," Justice Manmohan said.
"The only way we can deal with violations and bring people in conformity with the law is again to use technology in the right way," he added.
Justice Manmohan said that it would also solve the problem of the shortage of stenographers.
"The other thing is that as a chief justice, the first and the biggest problem that I face is all judges are requesting a large number of stenographers and there is not enough pool available," Justice Manmohan said.
"I think this will solve the problem to a large extent because once speech-to-text facility is available, especially with regard to the recording of evidence by the joint registrars and by the district judiciary, it will ensure that quite a big pool of stenographers becomes available," he added.
Justice Manmohan said that it was an example of the right application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology.
About hybrid court facilities, he said, "We are trying to promote paperless courts; everyone is making an effort, and the IT committee headed by Justice Rajiv Shakder is doing a great job. We require a lot more finances. Naturally, the state has its own priorities. So there is a bit of a sort of a tussle or there is a bit of argument over it and we have to resolve it."
"But we are ensuring that we are able to develop hybrid court facilities in all the 691 district courtrooms and a budget of about Rs 387 crore is on the anvil, and we are sure that we will get it soon enough and the 14 pilot court projects are in the pipeline which are to be implemented straight away," he added.
Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Shakder also spoke on the occasion.
Sanjay Garg, Principal District and Sessions Judge (Headquarters) gave the welcome address while the vote of thanks was given by Vinod Kumar, Principal District and Sessions Judge (west).