E-courts in India can make Indian laws and judiciary more transparent and user friendly. Although e-courts project of India has been launched as a mission mode project under the national e-governance plan (NEGP) of India, it has failed to materialise so far. Despite spending crores of money, we are still waiting for the establishment of first e-court of India.According to Praveen Dalal, managing partner of New Delhi base techno legal ICT law firm Perry4Law and CEO of India’s exclusive e-courts training and consultancy centre of India, E-Courts in India have still to see the light of the day. India is still at the first stage of Computerisation of some of the aspects of Courts. Full fledged E-Filling, Submission of Plaints and Documents Online, Online Evidence Producing, etc are still missing, informs Dalal.
Surprisingly there is no dearth of funds for the successful implementation of e-courts project of India. So what is the cause of this failure of e-court project of India? The answer seems to be lack of techno legal expertise to manage this ambitious project. Skill development in India is missing and this is more so regarding the e-courts skill development in India. In the absence of adequate skills, e-court project would never succeed.
Another reason for the failure of e-court project of India in general and Indian judicial system in particular is that judicial e-infrastructure of India also needs rejuvenation. Presently essential capabilities like e-filing, presentation, contest and adjudication of the cases in an online environment, etc are missing and India is just stressing upon “mere computerisation” with no actual work towards establishment of e-courts. E-courts services in India are an altogether different ball game that Indian courts and Indian government are not capable of playing with their existing capabilities and skills.
There are many future challenges that e-courts project of India would face. Without proper e-courts skill development in India, e-courts project is bound to fail. The techno legal skill development training and courses of Perry4Law Techno Legal Base (PTLB) can go a long way in bringing necessary skills for the successful implementation of e-courts project of India.
