Tech-driven initiatives are redefining judiciary

Brother Justice Suryakant,  my brother Justice Rajesh Bindal,  Chief Justice Sheel Nagu,  the distinguished judges of the Punjab and Haryana High Court who are here on the dais with us,  Brother Gurmeet Singh Sandhawalia,  Brother Justice Arun Palli, Justice Lisa Gill,  all the Chief Justices who have come here from near and far,  judges, members of the computer committees,  former judges of the High Court who have really honored us by their presence this morning and of course all the members of the registry and the other staff associated with the ICT committees. I just thought when I heard that little introduction by the compare for me that such an unabashedly uncritical appreciation of the lead speaker of the day is made only by two people in life, a daughter or a sister.

I'm sure my wife may not necessarily accept of all that is so warmly said, but in a lighter vein when I was visiting my sister in the United States a few years ago, her young daughters told me that there are only two people in the life of your sister, that is their mother, who can never make a mistake. One is the pet dog and the other is the brother. But thank you very much for that very warm introduction.

Well, I'm delighted to deliver the inaugural address at the national conference which aims to explore the transformative impact of technology on India's courts and map our future trajectory. The very convening of this conference this morning underscores the significant progress we have made in harnessing technology to enhance justice delivery. Even before I assumed office of the Chief Justice of India, I have had the privilege of serving as a chairperson of the e-committee of the Supreme Court.

I have closely watched the remarkable evolution in our discourse on the subject over the last four years. We have progressed from discussions about recognizing the need for technology to delving into its intricacies and best practices. Today, technology is acknowledged as an indispensable catalyst for accessible justice.

This paradigm shift is indeed heartening. There is no better evidence of the depth and nuance of our discourse about technology than the very agenda of this conference which has been so carefully curated up by our colleagues from the High Court of Punjab and Haryana. The carefully curated discussions over the next two days on a range of themes, from technical strategies to critical issues like artificial intelligence and data security, reflect the maturity of our discussions on the role of technology in justice delivery in our country.

We are no longer now discussing whether we should adopt technology, but rather how best we can harness it. I still remember the time when I was a young judge of the Bombay High Court and Chief Justice V N Khare had convened a conference on technology. So we had about 20 judges and all the Chief Justices lined up in what is now the largest judges' lunchroom.

Everyone had a desktop in front of them. You were told to operate your own desktop and they were trying to tell us everything from how to open your desktop. Most of the Chief Justice and most of the judges in the lounge that conference I remember had their desktops completely blank.

Nobody knew how even to open a desktop. So that was where we began. This was probably around 2004 or so.

But, how much we have now transformed as an institution and as individuals. People often see me approach the desk and say, or at the very least think to themselves, oh Chief, are you going to talk about technology once again? Many a time these people are indeed right. But something that many of them may not realize is that technology, being a tool to access to justice, is not just a modern convenience or a trendy topic.

It is deeply intertwined with the very foundations of our republic. Not only does the use of technology make our courts more accountable and responsive, it also brings people closer to the courtroom. The use of technology is therefore intrinsically linked to the values of transparency, democracy and equitable access to justice, which lie at the cornerstone of our republic.

In my address today, I will briefly illustrate how the use of technology by our courts is enhancing each of these foundational values. I believe that openness illuminates, while secrecy obscures. A quintessential example of technology augmenting transparency in our judicial system is the live streaming of cases and the facility of hybrid hearings.

Virtual hearings are no longer an exception born out of necessity of COVID, but are a normative practice in judicial fauna across the country, from the apex court to all the tribunals. Over the last four years, the Supreme Court has heard over 8 lakh cases through video conferencing or the hybrid hearing facility. This shift amplifies transparency and accountability for all stakeholders, litigants, lawyers and the public.

With hybrid hearings, lawyers can now appear before courts across the country, ensuring that the best legal representation is accessible to our citizens. Significantly, even litigants can now log into their hearings and witness proceedings firsthand. They are no longer dependent on intermediaries or the version of the hearing narrated by their lawyers.

This increased openness also holds us judges accountable for our words, actions and demeanor. In many ways, by embracing technology, we have transformed the theoretical open court system into a practical reality. Innovative initiatives like the National Judicial Data Grid, or NJDG, have revolutionized transparency in our judicial system.

With just a few clicks, NJDG now provides real-time data on case pendency, institution and disposal rates, and empowering citizens to monitor court efficiency. I would invite Chief Justices particularly to encourage all the administrative judges of the High Courts to use the facility of the NJDG. The virtual justice clock installed in courts across the country takes this a step further, offering visual representation of these key parameters.

This transparency enables citizens to hold us accountable for our performance and efficiency and raise pertinent questions. Similarly, the transcripts of arguments before the Constitution benches of the Supreme Court using artificial intelligence have created a valuable, freely available resource for researchers, legal practitioners and academics. These AI-generated transcripts offer a reliable record of deliberations and legal arguments presented before the Supreme Court.

I too have found them to be extremely helpful when crafting judgments on complex questions of law. I often find myself revisiting the transcripts to better appreciate the nuances of the arguments before the court. When future generations interpret our judgments, these recordings will reflect the perspectives of the legal minds that shaped our decisions.

When interpreting landmark judgments, future generations will be able to better contextualize the observations of our court by reviewing the arguments which were presented. In this way, transparency not only makes our institution more accountable, but also enhances the quality of our jurisprudence. When I was invited to become a judge of the High Court in 1998, I consulted a lot of very learned people because I was not very sure whether I should accept the offer.

One of those very learned people in our profession; I consulted Justice AP Sen, who wrote the famous ADM Jabalpur judgment. Justice AP Sen invited me to his home in Nagpur and said, well, there is a distinction between the life of a lawyer and the life of a judge. He said, a judge always leaves footprints on the sand.

And those footprints are the written word which you have crafted. But he said, the lawyers, however eminent, the brilliance of their argument is lost to future generations. So he says, please decide whether or not to accept judgeship based on what you want to be 20 or 25 years down the line.

But perhaps Justice AP Sen did not have the benefit of modern technology. Because today, the transcripts of legal argument that we are presenting will be an eternal resource of what brilliant legal minds argued in the courts. See how it is transforming the face of our judiciary.

No longer will the output of the Indian judiciary be judged by what is written in judgments, but equally by the contributors to those judgments in terms of the innovative arguments which they make. So the lawyer's argument, the lawyer's personality, the turn of phrase, the heat, the dust, and of course the camaraderie in courts can now be all incorporated in this virtual world that we live in. Beyond transparency, the facility of hybrid hearings also plays a vital role in increasing access to justice.

A classic example of this, as Brother Suryakant mentioned, is a special Lok Adalat organized by the Supreme Court last week. Through this initiative, we successfully disposed off over a thousand pending cases, bringing relief to litigants who had been waiting for several years in areas as diverse as land acquisition, service, consumer protection, civil, motor accident claims, check dishonor cases, across the spectrum. A Lok Adalat of this scale would not have been possible without the assistance of technology.

And even after the Lok Adalat got over last week, we are still dealing with the remnants of the cases which were almost settled, where you have on the large video conferencing screen district legal services authorities from all over the country, right from Meghalaya to Assam to Kerala, Tamil Nadu, you just name the DLSA, Punjab and Haryana, you have DLSAs across the country which are assisting us. Members of the DLSAs, litigants and lawyers from all corners of the country, from remote villages to metropolitan cities, participated effortlessly, courtesy of the hybrid hearing facility. This not only enhanced efficiency, but also promoted equity and accessibility.

Litigants and lawyers did not have to endure lengthy travels, saving time, money and resources and thereby realizing the core objectives of the Lok Adalat. I would like to publicly acknowledge the wonderful work and almost dedicated work with a single-minded purpose which was rendered by my very distinguished and senior colleague, Justice Suryakant, for the success of this Lok Adalat. For democracy to truly flourish, every citizen must feel connected to the institutions of our nation.

While the burden of bearing this responsibility is often placed on the executive and the legislature, I firmly believe the judiciary must play an equally vital role. One significant barrier preventing citizens from engaging with the judiciary, especially the High Court and the Supreme Court, is language. Our higher judiciary predominantly carries out its official work in English.

In a linguistically diverse nation, this poses a logistical challenge, balancing accessibility with consistency and uniformity. Here too, technology has emerged as a powerful enabler. With the help of artificial intelligence software called the Supreme Court Vidic Anuvad Software or SUVAS, the Supreme Court is actively translating its judgments and orders into regional languages.

We are working hard to expand this initiative and translate the judgments of the Supreme Court in all scheduled languages. Let me just give you just a few pieces of data. As of date, 69,841 judgments of the Supreme Court, totaling about 37,000 since independence.

We have a total of 69,841 judgments which have been translated and uploaded on the ESCR portal. Punjabi is second, 20,119 judgments of the Supreme Court already translated and uploaded.  Hindi leads the back, 36,280.

And then you have Malayalam, 1,887, Marathi, 2,417, Tamil, 2,488, Telugu, 1,094, Gujarati, 1,391, among other languages. Democratizing the judicial system, however, requires more than just installing world-class technological infrastructure. Our role must also extend to ensuring that this technology reaches and benefits every corner of the country.

To complement our virtual infrastructure, the establishment of e-seva kendras nationwide is essential. We have established the Multi-Facilitation Centre in the Supreme Court, which is a state-of-the-art facility which provides every kind of e-service to anybody who enters the Supreme Court. To complement our virtual infrastructure, it is essential that we ensure that every court establishment in the country has e-seva kendras.

These centers empower litigants to access case information, judgments and orders. They also facilitate e-filing and provide essential support.  In many ways, they bridge the access to justice gap for the common citizen, who may not have access to or may require hand-holding to utilize our virtual facilities.

We must prioritize empathy and support. Regular workshops and training sessions are crucial to ensure a smooth transition and equip all stakeholders with the necessary skills. This guarantees that no one is left behind in our march towards technological advancement.

As part of our mission of inclusion, we have been holding training programs for differently-abled staff of our High Courts across India.  The idea has been to make the differently-abled staff in the High Courts and the District Judiciary, especially the visually challenged, aware of the latest technological tools which are now available for them to do their work effectively. These members of the staff do not have to do only back-office work.

They can be doing cutting-edge work like everyone else. This address would be incomplete if I did not speak about the hotly contested role played by Artificial Intelligence in the judicial process and the legal profession. Recently, someone shared a thought-provoking quote with me that resonated with me.

Let me quote that. The quote is, I want Artificial Intelligence to do my dishes and laundry so that I can do my art and writing, and not for Artificial Intelligence to do my art and writing so that I can do my dishes and laundry. While we must welcome Artificial Intelligence for tasks that can be automated, we must ensure that it does not encroach upon creative processes that are inherently human.

In fact, I believe that Artificial Intelligence can never supplant these uniquely human endeavors. It can augment but never replace the innovative spark, emotional intelligence, and nuanced judgments that define our humanity. The Supreme Court of India has opened up its web portal for its second hackathon yesterday.

This hackathon is going to focus on Artificial Intelligence. And we have opened up the hackathon until the 31st of August on two themes. The first theme that we are speaking for the hackathon is how do we use Artificial Intelligence to lift the metadata of all the case files, names of parties, case number, all the details that we have, for the purpose of ensuring that we can cure the defects of the cases which are listed before the court.

The second theme that we are propounding is how we use Artificial Intelligence to develop intelligent chat bots so that we can provide to our litigants in languages which they understand. What, for instance, a woman who is in need of maintenance has to do to access the court.  So these two, we believe, will be eye-openers for all of us.

But we have to also acknowledge that though our systems and processes within the judiciary are strong, the world outside is moving at an enormously rapid pace. And I think it is time that we open ourselves as the Indian judiciary to ideas from beyond the judiciary. Not just from beyond us as judges and lawyers, but also beyond us as technical personnel in the Indian judiciary.

There are some fantastic startups which are doing work now outside the Indian judiciary. There is some amazing cutting edge thinking work which is going on outside the Indian judiciary. And let's be open to absorb the ideas.

Sometimes you always like to dwell in a cocoon of comfort. When you are challenged, we all retreat and say that's not my comfort zone and therefore you want to exclude any open ideas. Let's be open to ideas of people outside the judiciary who will challenge us, who will try and tell us how to do the things which we have been doing even in terms of IT so much better.

It is when we allow an exploration of the nooks and crannies of the judiciary that truly we will get some of the best ideas into our system. This wisdom also applies to the legal profession and must guide our approach to the role of artificial intelligence. Sophisticated legal argumentation continues to remain in the exclusive realm of human lawyers.

However, several routine tasks such as case law research, filing of pleadings, reviewing contracts and conducting due diligence can deeply benefit from AI and automation. In fact, relegating such tasks to artificial intelligence leaves lawyers with more time and bandwidth. They can focus their time on high value activities such as legal strategy, innovative argumentation and personalized client services.

For instance, in the Indian market, there is a mushrooming of artificial intelligence software for legal research and contract drafting. In my opinion, we must welcome these initiatives instead of fearing their potential. On a lighter note, I have heard that several chambers now of lawyers are putting their interns to the test by cross-checking their research with these AI generated results.

A nightmare for young interns, I imagine. In many ways, I believe that the transition to AI will mirror the earlier embrace of technology by lawyers. It will augment efficiency without impacting the foundational skills of our profession. I recall my early days as a junior lawyer struggling to prepare lengthy pleadings within tight deadlines. Mumbai pleadings are generally much more prolix than the rest of the country.  The drudgery of tedious tasks like manually renumbering pages, compiling documents and creating indexes consumed precious time.

A single revision suggested by my senior meant restarting the entire process. Fast forward to today, advanced PDF software and e-filing systems have revolutionized the workflow. These advancements have freed younger lawyers from hours of mundane tasks, allowing them to focus on honing essential skills like rigorous legal analysis, persuasive writing and thoughtful problem-solving, the very foundations of our profession.

On that note, I extend my warmest wishes to all of you for a productive and enriching conference. My colleagues from the Supreme Court, who will be chairing various sessions over the next two days, will undoubtedly return with a bag full of innovative ideas to implement in our court.