Virtual courts have increased efficiency of the judicial system, says Justice Kaul
New Delhi, February 19
Maintaining that virtual courts have increased efficiency of the judicial system, senior-most judge of the Supreme Court, Justice SK Kaul on Sunday said it’s necessary to utilise this system for which a vast infrastructure has been created.
“I would say the virtual system has actually increased the efficiency level and hence even today, I operate on a hybrid level where I permit lawyers to appear through video conferencing,” Justice Kaul said while speaking on the topic ‘Arbitration Vision 2030: What the Future Beholds?’
In his address at the concluding session of the four-day long ‘Delhi Arbitration Weekend’, Justice Kaul said when the world was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, the international arbitration community shifted to the virtual system and gradually virtual or hybrid hearings will become a norm and physical hearings will become an exception.
Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju was the chief guest at the concluding session.
“To keep the wheels of justice moving as much as possible, we introduced virtual hearing in courts and India being a developing country, faced infrastructural and connectivity issues but it did not take long for the stakeholders to find a way of operating efficiently,” he said, adding that the virtual system has reduced the cost of travel and allowed lawyers to prepare their cases in a short time.
The virtual system has done away with the need of unnecessarily spending money on travelling to different parts of the world for conferences or hearings and it has also become easier for arbitrators and practitioners to find a suitable date of hearing, Justice Kaul said.
“This is something the Chief Justice of India also on recent occasions emphasised that having created this vast infrastructure it is necessary to utilise it to the best possible way considering that the government has also sanctioned a large amount for further use of technology to strengthen the judicial system,” he said.
Some arbitration institutions have explicitly come out with virtual arbitration rules, requiring arbitrators and practitioners to know the basics of technology with an attention to cyber security and other issues, Justice Kaul said even as he maintained that he didn’t not consider virtual hearings to be a foolproof system as experience showed that they come with their own set of problems.
With regard to Artificial Intelligence tools like ChatGPT, he said people can get answers to any query possible and to explore the use of AI, the Supreme Court of India has formed an AI committee which is looking into various aspects. AI tools must be used very carefully as they come with risks of due process rights and public policy violations, he added.
