For the first time ever in India, Madhya Pradesh High Court is setting up the live streaming of proceedings for all Districts and Tehsil courts in the state. Madhya Pradesh High Court Chief Justice Ravi Malimath on Thursday inaugurated the MPHC IVSS and CLASS project in the presence of Judges of High Court and Officers of High Court and District Court, Jabalpur. 

The project aims to make the court premises administered by Madhya Pradesh High Court safer and transparent, preparing the state’s judiciary for the digital era . Reports stated that in line with the overall objective of moving towards safer court premises, the High Court has initiated the Integrated Video Surveillance System (IVSS) and Courtroom Live Audio Visual Streaming System (CLASS). The project worth Rs 189.25 crores will also enable live streaming of courtrooms of 210 court complexes, under the High Court of Madhya Pradesh, Jabalpur, in addition to enhancement of security in the courts. 

Under the aegis of this project, Video Surveillance System at every court premises and within every courtroom – 24×7 surveillance of gates, courtyard (parking places), building entry points, courtroom entrances, courtrooms, passages and other public assembly points with the use of advanced megapixel IP camerasIntegration of IVSS, CLASS and the case tracking and management system is currently in use at High Court of Madhya Pradesh.  

A state-of-the-art command and control center and data centre in Jabalpur for alarm monitoring, on-demand video monitoring and audio-visual recording archival along with disaster recovery set-up at Indore, Local district level control rooms for monitoring local/ remote security cameras, biometric (Facial) access control for judges chambers and data centers, use of door frame and hand-held metal detectors for visitor screening are among the major highlights of the project. 

Reportedly, under the pilot phase, a Centralized Command and Control Center (CCC) at Jabalpur and disaster recovery site at Indore have been set up and an Integrated Video Surveillance System (IVSS) has been commissioned at District Court of Jabalpur and Tehsil Courts of Patan and Sihora. Additionally, the Courtroom Live Audio Visual Streaming System (CLASS) implementation has also been completed in one courtroom of Jabalpur District Court and one courtroom each of Tehsil Courts of Patan and Sihora. The state-wide implementation of the project is expected to be completed by December 2024. 

The Supreme Court of India’s e-committee has recently put out its May 2021 issue. The highlight of the May newsletter is that it has released manuals in 14 languages (English, Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarathi, Kannada, Khasi, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu) for its top citizen-centric servicefree e-Courts services mobile app.

The “e-Courts Services Mobile app” has already been released by e-Committee for the benefit of the litigants, citizens, lawyers, law firms, police, Government agencies and other institutional litigants. The mobile app, along with e-Committee Newsletter, May 2021 3 its manuals in English and other regional languages, can be freely downloaded from the official website of the eCommittee, Supreme Court of India.

On May 18, 2021, the e-Committee Training programme for Advocates and Advocates Clerk was conducted by the High Court of Madhya Pradesh under the guidance of Chairperson of the Computer and E-Committee of Madhya Pradesh High Court, through the Advocate Master Trainers along with Judge Master Trainers.

On May 31, 2021, the Karnataka High Court live streamed the proceedings of their Court Hall No 1 on a pilot basis. With that, the Karnataka High Court joins the Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh High Courts, who are already live streaming their court proceedings.

The Uttarakhand High Court has developed an application software (District Court Performance Monitoring Tool – DCPMT) for monitoring the daily performance of District Courts in the State of Uttarakhand.

Also Read: Supreme Court e-committee puts out draft model rules for live-streaming out

The Patna High Court introduced Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS) to facilitate speedy justice through data exchange between the Courts, police/prosecution, jails and the forensic labs. In Bihar: all Courts have been integrated with ICJS; 894 CCTNS enabled Police Stations have been integrated with ICJS; all the 59 Prisons are online and integrated with ICJS; 36 Districts are using e-Prosecution and all are integrated with ICJS; and all three FSLs are using e-Forensics and are integrated with ICJS.

The Kerala High Court introduced the e-Filing facility for all case types from  May 17, 2021. As per the provisions in the Electronic Filing Rules for Courts (Kerala), 2021, a designated counter for e-Filing was setup at the High Court by converting the e-Sewa Kendra. Sufficient number of computer systems with scanners and internet facility were provided at the e-Filing counter.