e-Initiatives and Best Practices at High Court of Uttarakhand
• e-Sewa Kendra- E-Sewa Kendra at High Court of Uttarakhand premises is a centralized facility where all ICT enabled services including e-filing will be provided to the Advocates and litigants, which has been inaugurated by Hon’ble the Chief Justice on 16th September 2021. Following services are being provided at Hon’ble High Court of Uttarakhand premises through E-Sewa Kendra:
- Queries about case status, next date of hearing and other details.
- Assistance in downloading the Mobile App of eCourts for Android and IOS.
- Queries about Judges on leave.
- Queries about location of the particular Court, its cause-list and whether the case is taken up for hearing or not.
- Guide people on how to avail free legal services from District Legal Service Authority, High Court Legal Service Committee, and Supreme Court Legal Service Committee.
- Queries and assistance in respect of facilities which are digitally available under eCourt Project.
- Queries pertaining to hearing of cases through video conferencing.
Steps are being taken to initiate such service in all the court complexes of Uttarakhand State, so that the Advocates, litigants, and indigent may take advantage of it.
Pictures of inauguration of e-Sewa Kendra-
• Mobile Court Units (M.C.U.)- It is well known that the remoteness of habitats and virtual absence of transport facilities in remote and tough landscapes of Uttarakhand, poise a huge challenge for the litigants. Further the time lost in recording the evidence of witnesses who are located in far off places is also a matter of grave concern as it inordinately prolongs the life of a case. A lot of precious court time is wasted in securing the presence of medical and formal witnesses like Doctors and Policemen Investigation Officers for their evidence, as they are frequently transferred from one place to another. Hence, on the occasion of 75th Independence Day, five (05) vehicles fully equipped with Video Conferencing hardware, Internet connectivity have been provided to District Court Chamoli, Champawat, Pithoragarh, Tehri Garhwal and Uttarkashi of the State.
• In view of COVID-19 pandemic, all the Courts are hearing cases through Video Conferencing since 15/04/2020. Open Source Software JITSI Meet and Google meet are being used for hearing through Video Conferencing.
• Online Court fee has been launched for High Court and Subordinate Courts of state.
• Digital Signatures has been provided to all the Judicial Officers of State.
• Facilities such as Online Daily and weekly Cause Lists in PDF format, Judgments and orders in PDF format, Online Display Board, Online Case Status using website/NJDG/Android Application, Enquiry of cases by kiosk are being provided to stakeholders.
• LFD based Physical Screens (22) has been installed in the premises of Hon’ble Court for Live Case Running Status.
• Case Categorization, Full Bench Judgments, Jurisdiction of Judicial Courts in Uttarakhand, Circular Letters, Notifications, Results/ Recruitments, RTI Manual, tenders etc. are available for all stakeholders on High Court Website.
• Presence on eTender Portal and Government e-Marketplace (GeM) Portal of India.
• eGranthalaya, KOHA, Online law libraries like SCC online and Manupatra are being used by Library and Hon’ble Judges of High Court.
• Studio/desktop Video Conferencing facility is available at High Court.
• Internet connectivity 34 MBPS and 50 MBPS throughout the High Court by leased line, dual Internet connectivity at residence of Hon’ble Judges and Free Wi-Fi Internet facility at High court Campus for all stakeholders.
• Digitization of old Court Records. Approximately 1.32 crore documents has been scanned and digitized. DSPACE software is being used to manage and retrieve the said digitized documents.
• Inventory Management System for Stationery, Inventory Management System for Management office, budget monitoring, recruitment monitoring, under trial prisoners etc., are being developed and used by sections of Hon’ble Court.
• Legal Aid Information System (LAIS) to provide online free legal help to weaker sections of society has been developed and launched.
• Case Information System(CIS 3.2) has been installed at District Courts and data of cases are being entered in CIS 3.2 for further uploading on NJDG. SMS and email service is functioning at 51 court complexes, seven Family Courts and 1 Commercial Court, where CIS 3.2 is functioning. Video Conferencing facility has been installed at 23 court complexes and at 10 jail complexes. The remand work and recording of evidence is being done through video conferencing. The website of all the District Courts is available in Drupal 7.0 and is up-to-date. Various activities of the State Judiciary are being monitored with the help of video conferencing.
• eTrue Copy application: Litigants/lawyers/stakeholders can directly download online certified copies of orders and judgments from the eTrue Copy web portal https://etruecopy.uk.gov.in/ . There is no need for a stakeholder to apply for physically certified copies, as the eTrue copies are deemed to be certified copies for all purposes, including judicial work. These copies can be obtained free of cost.
• District Court Pendency Monitoring Tool (DCPMT): This is a tool by means of which the performance of the Judicial Officers of the State can be monitored on daily and monthly basis. The Tool also enables the High Court to monitor the progress of all the subordinate courts in terms of day-to-day disposal of every case including special category cases like old cases, cases relating to Women, Children, Senior citizens etc.
• Witness Statement Recording Module: The witness statement recording module has an inbuilt writer which is integrated with CIS Software. The Court Reader/User can open this software from CIS Case Diary and type the statement of witness on the computer. Once the witness’ statement is recorded, it is saved as a PDF in the CIS server. This ensures secure and tamper proof environment for recorded testimony.
• Inspection Pendency Report Module: The Inspection Pendency Report Module is developed for keeping digital record of all District court Cases data (including institution, disposal, pendency, closing and opening balances of the cases). This portal shows Judge wise and court wise pendency, and also the disposal of cases. Report can be fetched by the Inspection Section, by selecting various search case nature criteria like:
1. Cases relating to Senior, Citizen,
2. Cases relating to Disabled Person,
3. Cases relating to Mental health,
4. Cases relating to Transgenders,
5. Cases relating to Crime Against Women,
6. Cases relating to SC/ST,
7. Cases relating to POCSO and Rape Cases etc.
In addition to this, there are other reports also that can be fetched from this portal like District wise case pendency, State case pendency, year wise case pendency etc.
• Online Pendency & Arrears Module: Online Pendency & Arrears Module is developed to generate and maintain records of District Courts within less time for further processing of the data. This portal shows opening balance of institution, pendency and disposal of cases for both, CIS and NON CIS data in each month. This portal also compare differences between data entered in CIS software and data registered manually for above cases.
• Recruitment Management System: The Recruitment Management System is developed for keeping and accessing the record of sanctioned, working and vacant strength of court staff. Records relating to recruitment as generated by District Courts are easily fetched without calling for physical records. Thus, saves time and manpower.
Legal Aid Information System: Person in need of free legal aid submits their application online for requesting free legal aid through this portal. The module also provides a user the facility to track the status of application online.
• eCase Transmission System (ETS): The case files are uploaded in this module in PDF. The Hon’ble Judges can access the case file in case of online hearings. If required these PDFs can be downloaded for perusing case records before hearings the next day.