HC to e-link lab reports with cases

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 16

The Punjab and Haryana High Court is launching an initiative to e-link reports of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, state forensic laboratories and food testing and chemical laboratories with the respective cases being pursued in the court. The move is aimed at ensuring that the findings are not tampered with and the computer-generated reports are legible to judges as well as lawyers.

The process, initiated by the High Court Computer Committee headed by Justice Rajesh Bindal, is expected to be completes later this year. It will also entail electronic signatures of doctors/scientists so that there is minimum human intervention in the reports. The visits of doctors and scientists to the courts for recording evidence will be needed only in rare cases.

Talking to The Tribune, Justice Bindal said the initiative would help in the speedy delivery of judgements. “Often, we have observed that the investigating officers do not collect samples from the labs on time. The courts keep waiting for the evidence to be put on record, which delays the cases. This happens both in criminal offences where forensic evidence has to be placed on record, and cases of food adulteration, where chemical analysis of samples is to be produced as evidence.”

He added that the software for linking the labs with the police station/food authority concerned was complete, while “we are now linking these with the court cases, so that the courts have online access to each report generated in the labs. All labs in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh, are being linked electronically.”

Justice Bindal said the National Informatics Centre (NIC) was involved in developing the software for e-linking of labs. The Technical Director of NIC, Haryana, Rahul Jain, said they had developed the medico-legal examination and post mortem report system (MedLEaPR) for the High Court a few years ago. “Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have approached us to borrow the software for MedLEaPR,” he added.