Another first for tech capital: Karnataka High Court may soon go digital

BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court will soon go digital in keeping with Bengaluru's reputation as India's silicon city . The court will digitise everything from the filing of petitions to judgment delivery .
The committee for computerisation, led by Justice Ram Mohan Reddy and has other six judges as members, has favoured administration of justice as a paperless affair.

As a pilot, the court seeks to start with two judges who are dealing with taxation, company affairs and revenue matters.

Later, the project will be extended to 40 court halls in Bengaluru, and 20 court halls in Hubballi-Dharwad and Kalaburagi. The pilot is expected to take off in six months. The High Court is making the move after studying the way courts in the US, the UK and Singapore have adopted technology .

The high court will open a petition filing desk where petitioners have the choice of filing their petitions either with a pen drive or with paper. In the case of latter, the court will scan it and upload it on its site.The petitions will be assigned to individual judges according to the subjects they are dealing with such as criminal, civil and taxation. Central Project Coordinator TG Shiva Shankaregowda, himself a district judge, told ET the court was receiving full support from the government. The pilot project was estimated to cost `10 crore and the state government has released Rs 3 crore.

The court has now decided to go for a fresh global tender after the three private firms which had been shortlisted for the project expressed their inability to comply with the court's deadlines for the completion of the project. According to Gowda, judges will be provided with table touch-screen computers and huge TV screens will be installed on either side of the court halls. Judges, advocates and others sitting in the court can watch on the TV screen the documents the judge is looking at.

A judge has to just touch the case number on the computer screen, and the case files will be open in book format. There will also be an option to audio record the court proceedings. Judges will digitally sign the order or the judgment copy as is the practice in many private sector companies.

Centre for E-Governance CEO Rathan U Kelkar said the government was doing its best to help the high court achieve the distinction of being the first court in the country to go paperless.