Hon’ble Mr. Justice Surya Kant, Judge of the Supreme Court of India, and Shri Bhupendrabhai Patel, Chief Minister of Gujarat, inaugurated the Digital Hybrid Hearing Platform for Family Courts with Remote Adjudication in Jurisdictional Taluka Courts. The inauguration ceremony was held at the Gujarat High Court Auditorium on 7th December 2024, in the presence of Hon’ble Mrs. Justice Sunita Agarwal, Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court, Hon’ble Law Minister Shri Rushikeshbhai Patel, Hon’ble sitting Judges of the Gujarat High Court, Ld. Advocate General Mr. Kamal B. Trivedi and other dignitaries.
As part of a pathbreaking initiative for the Family Courts and Family matters of the State pending in Courts other than the Family Courts, spearheaded under the vision and guidance of Hon’ble Mrs. Justice Sunita Agarwal, Chief Justice, High Court of Gujarat; Cluster Family Courts at Taluka level in the State of Gujarat, were recently established with the concurrence of the Govt. of Gujarat. Accordingly, all the Talukas of the Districts have been covered with jurisdiction of the Taluka Cluster Family Courts at the headquarters of the particular Taluka or the nearest Taluka place, with inclusion of nearest Talukas within the Family Court at the District headquarters.
These 73 Cluster Taluka Family Courts, wherein Family Court Judges are presiding over multiple Taluka Family Courts as per the sitting schedules of different days/dates during the month (depending upon the pendency), are now enabled as hybrid as well as remote adjudication Courts, with inauguration of eGujSWAS (eGujarat Scanning Workflow Automation System) with facilitation of authentic scanned version of digital case files from Taluka Courts to the Presiding Judges of Family Courts sitting at District headquarters or Cluster Taluka Family Courts.
The details of the salient features and facilities of the newly launched platform are as follows:
- ICT Enablement of Cluster Family Courts at Taluka level:
Case files of Family Courts would be digitised to facilitate digital access to the Presiding Officers while sitting in one or another Taluka Court. Video Conferencing access has been provided for each of the Taluka Family Courts. As the Presiding Officer is holding regular sittings at the Taluka Cluster Family Court Headquarter and not the Talukas included in the cluster (mentioned as Jurisdictional Talukas), a facility has been established both at the Taluka Cluster Family Court Headquarters and Jurisdictional Talukas with Video Conferencing Rooms to enable litigants/Ld. Advocates to address the Presiding Officer of the Taluka Cluster Family Court for fresh filing as well as for evidence recording, except for Conciliation Sittings. The idea is to facilitate an accessible Taluka Family Court through VC where the Presiding Officer will have access to the latest version of the digitised case file. - In-house Software for Scanning & Digitization:
The inaugurated eGujSWAS software solution is an in-house platform developed for case-wise uploading of digitised case files of Taluka Family Courts integrated with CIS data as uploaded on NJDG. Software is based upon the structure of in-house scanning and digitization software being used by the High Court of Gujarat. The Open APIs of the eCourts Project are used for fetching case meta-data from the NJDG. - Video Conferencing Enabled Institution and Adjudication:
The fresh filing of cases is being made at the Jurisdictional Taluka Court only so that the litigants and Ld. Advocates do not have to travel to the Taluka Cluster Headquarter or District Headquarter of the Family Court establishment for filing cases. For passing of the first order by the Presiding Officer, the fresh case documents received, upon being digitised immediately would be shared through the eGujSWAS Platform with the Presiding Officer on the days when the sitting is scheduled at the Taluka Cluster Headquarters or the District Headquarter in addition to the facility of enabling immediate access to read the case file through document visualiser. The first order passed would be digitally signed and placed back into the physical file as well as appended to the digital case file. The subsequent proceedings of the case after in-person conciliation, would proceed with a hybrid mode, i.e. personal hearing on the days when the Presiding Officer is holding a sitting at the Taluka Family Court and remote adjudication through VC when the Presiding Officer is holding a sitting at another Taluka or the headquarter and the matter pertains to the particular Taluka Family Court. - Index with bookmarking of the e-Case files:
The digitised case file shall have an index of documents as per the type of documents as bookmarks to the digitised PDF e-casefile. The subsequently added documents such as applications, daily orders, processes, replies, written submissions, depositions of evidence, etc. would be digitised and uploaded to make the same available to the Presiding Officers for real-time access. The e-Casefiles would be in text searchable PDF files with navigation features based on the index of documents as per the Exhibit Number of the documents in the case file. - Day-to-Day Updations on Existing Documents:
The day-to-day annotations/endorsements on the already digitised and uploaded documents would be managed by version-based uploading of updated pages of the documents and arranging the same based on exhibit numbers allotted to the document in the digitised eCase file.
These DIGITAL HYBRID HEARING FAMILY COURTS with REMOTE ADJUDICATION aim to be the first of its kind facilitating the easiest possible Access to Justice to the litigants of the most important judicial forum of the Nation from a social perspective, i.e. the FAMILY COURTS.
Hon’ble Mr. Justice Surya Kant, Judge, Supreme Court of India, while blessing the initiative in His Lordship’s inauguration speech, emphasised that the technology, when implemented appropriately in an optimum, constructive and positive way, has the capacity to do wonders in infusing confidence of people in the system, eliminating geographical boundaries and distances and take the country at the advantageous stage to the vision of 2047. His Lordship lauded the efforts of the Gujarat High Court for taking a leap forward in the implementation of technology, which would also lead to a reduction of cost factor, bringing about transparency, efficiency and accountability in the justice delivery system.
The inauguration function was live streamed at https://www.youtube.com/live/FGdIbHMSd6U?si=juK_hcHmtwNXz4Zd
