CONTEXT

• As per popular perception, Indian courts are not associated first with the delivery of justice, but with long delays and difficulties for ordinary litigants.
• According to data released by the Supreme Court in the June 2020 newsletter of the e-Committee, 3.27 crore cases are pending before Indian courts, of which 85,000 have been pending for over 30 years.
• Hence, the question arises, Can technology be used to revolutionise India’s courts?

CONCERN

• Use of technology is capable of revolutionising  Indian courts, but only when it operates within the constitutional framework of the fundamental rights of citizens. If not, technology will only further exclusion, inequity and surveillance.

SIGNIFICANCE OF DIGITISATION OF COURTS UNDER THE E–COURTS PROJECTS

• The e-Committee of the Supreme Court of India recently released its draft vision document for Phase III of the e-Courts project.
• Phases I and II of the project had dealt with digitisation of the judiciary, i.e., e-filing, tracking cases online, uploading judgments online, etc.
  • Even though the job is not complete, particularly at the lower levels of the judiciary, the project can so far be termed a success.
  • Particularly, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when physical courts were forced to shut down, the Supreme Court and High Courts have been able to function online. This was made possible by the e-Courts project, monitored by the e-Committee.

• Phase III of the e-Courts project, is the commitment to the digitisation of court processes, and plans to upgrade the electronic infrastructure of the judiciary and enable access to lawyers and litigants.

WHAT ELSE NEEDS TO BE DONE IN THE PROJECT

• The document by the e-Committee of the Supreme Court of India, has proposed an “ecosystem approach” to justice delivery.
• It suggests a “seamless exchange of information” between various branches of the State, such as between the judiciary, the police and the prison systems through the Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS).

CONCERNS RAISED ON ICJS

• It has been pointed out by organisations such as the Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project that the ICJS will likely aggravate the existing class and caste inequalities that characterise the police and prison system.
• This is because the exercise of data creation happens at local police stations, which have historically contributed to the criminalisation of entire communities through colonial-era laws such as the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871, by labelling such communities as “habitual offenders”.
• Also, this is of particular concern since the data collected, shared and collated through the e-Courts project will be housed within the Home Ministry under the ICJS.

PROBLEM WITH COLLECTING OF DATA

Not Data collection is by itself not an evil process

• In fact, data can be a useful tool for solving complex problems.
• For example, to address the problem of cases pending simply for service of summons, Phase II of the e-Courts project saw the development of the National Service and Tracking of Electronic Processes, software that enabled e-service of summons.
• It is only when data collection is combined with extensive data sharing and data storage that it becomes a cause for concern.

360 profiling

• There has been a dangerous trend towards creating a 360-degree profile of each person by integrating all of their interactions with government agencies into a unified database.
• This 360-degree approach is the main objective of Phase III. Once any government department moves online, localised data will become centralised which can be used for targeted surveillance.

Access to Home Ministry

• It is understandable that the courts will benefit from access to police and prison records, as courts deal with a variety of matters, like civil, commercial or personal in nature.
• But no clear explanation has been offered for why the Home Ministry needs access to court data that may have absolutely no relation to criminal law. Hence, this process serves no purpose other than profiling and surveillance.

WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE?

• Data can be useful when it provides anonymous, aggregated, and statistical information about issues without identifying the individuals.
• This could be made possible in Phase III by encouraging uniformity and standardisation of entry fields.
• The Supreme Court must take care not to violate the privacy standards that it set in Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017), especially since India does not yet have a data protection regime.

WAYFORWARD

• Since the Phase III vision document is a draft, there is still an opportunity to abandon the ecosystem approach.
• The objectives of the project to streamline judicial processes, reduce pendency, and help the litigants, needs to be within the framework of our fundamental rights.
• Hence, the e-Courts must move towards localisation of data, instead of centralisation.
• The e-Committee must prevent the “seamless exchange” of data between the branches of the state that ought to remain separate.

Technology plays an important role in the project, but it cannot be an end in itself.

Reference:

1. https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-promise-and-perils-of-digital-justice-delivery/article34773168.ece