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The litigation in India’s courts during Cov-19 times took unprecedented turns where the cases were being conducted via videoconferencing. Considering the present times, litigants have the facility to file plaints electronically via e-filing and also make pay court fees and fines online via the link provided on the website of virtual courts. Moreover, the media is provided with a special facility for observing case proceedings held by the bench(es). 

A note must be taken that the concept of a ‘Virtual Courtroom’ is not new in India. In the case of State of Maharashtra v. Prafull Desai (2003), it was held that recording of evidence by a court via videoconferencing shall be considered to be ‘as per the procedure established by law’. From that point forward, numerous courts have formulated various guidelines in this respect and have held judicial proceedings via video conferencing. 

E-Courts portal

The launch of the eCourts portal has helped one to view the status of their cases, cause lists, judgments, daily orders, etc. It is a time-saving solution for the litigants, advocates, government agencies, police, and common citizens. Any citizen can check the status of the case of any court across the country by searching and using the options provided on the website. Its benefits are as follows:

A. Bilingual

This portal provides access to several languages. The app is implemented in English and local language scripts like Devanagari, Kannada, Tamil, Gujarati, etc. for the ease of advocates, litigants and citizens across states. This will help in proliferating the reach of legal news and in promoting legal awareness without language posing as a hindrance.

B. User friendly

With this portal, an individual can easily avail of such services with ease. One of the main objectives of this portal is to strive to provide its users with efficient and time-bound citizen-centric service. 

C. Single unified portal 

D. This portal is a consolidation of all the portals across the country.  

E. Quick delivery of court services 

F. Case status, next hearing date, cause lists, orders, and judgments can be delivered quickly. 

G. Easy and Efficient access to case information

G. Case information can be accessed easily and efficiently anytime, anywhere.

E-filing

COVID-19 has transformed the way evidence is gathered and passed on. Courts are encouraging litigants to file electronically, which in turn has helped in reducing the wastage of paper which is a major environmental issues. E-filing, also known as electronic filing, is a facility that provides filing of cases through the internet. Citizens can access this service by using the portal. A user manual and several guidelines are provided by the e-Committee for easy understanding and support of users while facilitating the use of the e-filing system. 

E-filing is convenient, and has facilities like ready-made templates for pleadings, online submissions of documents like vakalatnama and affidavits, signing documents in electronic form (e-signatures), online payment of court fees and fines, amongst others. Moreover, this system will let police stations across India file charge sheets and other documents digitally.

The system of e-filing has multiple advantages like:

a.     It has proven to be effective in saving time, money, and travel for councils and clients.

b.     Physical presence in the court is not mandatory.

c.     The case files get digitized automatically. 

d.     It has impacted the environment positively by reducing the paper footprint. 

The Supreme Court’s eCommittee has instructed all the high courts to ensure that all the petitions and cases filed by the government must be done via e-filing only from January 1, 2022. Also, physical filing of cases filed by the government will not be allowed after the date in any case. Furthermore, all the petitions, appeals and revisions against the subordinate courts' judgments/orders must also be mandatorily filed via e-filing from January 1, 2022.

E-Payment of court fees and fines

Along with virtual courts, easy services for online payment of court fees, fines, penalty and judicial deposits were initiated. The official facility for making payment for Courts in India is ePay. An ePay is a system of making transitions or paying the court fees via an electronic medium, without using any cheque or cash. Moreover, ePay is user-friendly and will help in making online payments simple and hassle-free. An individual will also get an instant acknowledgement of his transaction. 

Online payment can be made by the citizens using the portal. This will reduce the usage of stamps, cheques and cash. The ePayment portal is integrated with state-specific vendors like SBI ePay, GRAS, e-GRAS, JeGRAS, Himkosh, etc. 

Nowadays, it is very easy to make online payments of challans (official notice of a traffic offence) using the online portal. It is quite useful for every Indian citizen as it has many services to offer that will benefit individuals, including paying e-challan etc.

Checking the status of a case. 

Recently, by the fear of Lok Adalat, the Maharashtra Highway Safety Portal (HSP), commonly known as the Highway Traffic Police, collected around 5.52 crore e-challan dues from 1.20 lakh motorists in a week. They paid their dues, fearing that they would have to attend court if they default to repay the pending dues. 

Here, efficient use of technology is made for providing a simple, systematic, well-organised and complete traffic monitoring system that ensures that data is shared at the national level. The system of e-challan aims to provide an ideal solution for the challenges faced by the transport department in terms of issuing traffic challans, managing records/back-end operations, tracking the history of the offences committed, payment report, etc. by using, adapting and implementing the latest technology at the ground level. Furthermore, citizens can make online payments of challans ‘anytime and anywhere’. 

Mobile application

The eCourts mobile application is a gateway to all legal information and tools for judges, lawyers, litigants—and civilians, and also police, government agencies and others. Services like search options for case status, cause lists, court orders can be accessed through this mobile app which is available 24×7. It also has a search option to keep track of cases by QR code. The key attraction of this application is the option of “My cases” wherein one can bookmark and add personal case numbers and get updates. The calendar feature is yet another feature provided in the application where advocates can view a diary of the cases listed before the court.