CJI DY Chandrachud Launches ‘Neutral Citation’ For High Court and Supreme Court Judgement

CJI DY Chandrachud Launches ‘Neutral Citation’ For High Court and Supreme Court Judgement

As part of efforts to explore the possible ways in which the legal system can be utilized through the use of technology, the Orissa High Court recently organized a two-day National Conference on Digitization, Paperless Courts, and e-Initiatives at the Odisha Judicial Academy, Cuttack.

The conference, held at the Odisha Judicial Academy in Cuttack, was inaugurated by Chief Justice of India Dr. Justice Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud, in the presence of in the presence of Justice Rajesh Bindal, Judge, Supreme Court of India and Dr. Justice S. Muralidhar, Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court.

On of the primary agenda of the Conference was Implementation of the Action Plan for Phase-III of e-Courts Project of the Supreme Court with representatives from different High Courts and Government departments being a part of it. Also, the delegates from the Department of Justice, Government of India and the e-Committee, Supreme Court of India are also attending the Conference.

One of the notable initiatives launched at the event was the ‘Neutral Citation for the Indian Judiciary,’ which aims at implementing a uniform methodology for identifying and citing decisions of the orders and judgments of the Supreme Court and High Courts.

It is to ensure easy identification and retrieval of case laws, making them accessible to everyone for free through Neutral Citations, rather than just being limited to the subscribers of private law reporters.

To identify case law in different law reports, different patterns are adopted, which often leads to confusion. Neutral Citation System is a uniform and secure methodology for identifying and citing decisions of the orders and judgments of the Supreme Court and High Courts.

In this system, each decision (both reportable and non-reportable of the Supreme Court and High Courts would have a citation of its own approved by the respective Courts, independent of the Law Reports. The system will make it easier for Courts to publish the orders and judgments in public domain by providing a consistent method of citing judicial decisions which will facilitate easy identification, referencing and retrieval thereof.

In this way, the case laws that are currently accessible only to subscribers to private law reporters will now be available to everyone with the help of Neutral Citations for free.

Another major highlight of the conference was CJI’s announcement on moving to cloud storage for storing digitized court records, live-streaming recordings, electronic evidence, and establishing paperless Courts.

According to the CJI, building a trustworthy digital repository is one of the key focus areas of Phase III of the e-Court project and this will involve digitization of entire court records, both legacy records and pending cases.

As part of Phase III of the project, CJI said that it is proposed to digitize 3108 crore pages. This is necessary in light of the physical storage constraints that are experiencing all over the country as a result of the solar program.

Furthermore, he emphasized that the transition to electronic filing should take place simultaneously with digitization and that further physical output not already digitizized needs to be avoided. As a consequence of this, a mechanism is required to preserve born-digit data, which will be received by e-filing and the ICJS, which will contain FIRs and charge sheets. For this to happen, a mechanism must be built to preserve born-digit data.

During the conference, delegates also visited the Record Room Digitization Centre (RRDC) of the High Court of Orissa, which is a role model for other High Courts in the field of digitization, as termed by the CJI.

At this juncture the Judges of all the High Courts of the Country attending the Conference, had the opportunity to visit and study the process undertaken in RRDC. The visiting Judges and Judicial Officers from all over the country were also enthralled to see how the centuries old judicial documents are still preserved in the Centre for Judicial Archives and are currently showcased in the Museum of Justice.