Kalpetta In Kerala Becomes First Judicial District In Country Where All Courts Are Paperless; CJI Surya Kant Inaugurates

Kalpetta Judicial District in Wayanad District of Kerala has become the first Judicial District in the Country where all Courts will function in a paperless mode.

The Chief Justice of India, Justice Surya Kant inagurated the paperless Courts today in a function held in the High Court of Kerala.  

Chief Justice Surya Kant said during the function, "In the emerald heart of Wayanad, a land that understands the sanctity of the old and the necessity of the new, we are shedding the tyranny of the file".  

"While digitalising our Courts, we are practicing what I would like to call green jurisprudence. We are honouring our ecological contract by ensuring that the pursuit of human justice no longer demands sacrifice of our natural heritage", the CJI said. 

Justice Vikram Nath of the Supreme Court said during the function that the project is part of a "comprehensive district-wise transformation".  Referring to the fact that Kalpetta is in the Wayanad District, which is considered backward, that "innovation is not exclusively confined to metropolitan centres".

He said that the project is part of a commitment to environmental responsibility, as traditionally, the Courts are the largest institutional consumers of paper. 

Chief Justice Nitin Jamdar of the High Court said that paperless functioning will be more transparent and will reduce costs for litigants.

Justice AK Jayasankaran Nambiar of the Kerala High Court said that the AI tool used in the system overcomes the global problem of not being able to reproduce satisfactory results due to a lack of reliable data for machine learning. He said that the system is developed in-house by the High Court IT team, without relying on any third-party proprietary platforms. 

Justice Anil K Narendran of the High Court said that two more IT-based projects are in the pipeline, one a seamless mediation platform and the other a platform to monitor the activities of the High Court legal services committee.  

 P Rajeev, the State Law Minister, thanked the judiciary for selecting Wayanad, a backward district, for the project. 

Features of Paperless Courts 

Explaining the features of the paperless Court and the system used for the same, Justice Raja Vijayaraghavan of the Kerala High Court said, "Our mission reaches a significant milestone in Wayanad with the Kalpetta judicial District becoming the first District in India where all the Courts function completely without papers, from filing to final orders. It is a paradigm change in the way Courts work. From the very inception of the case, pre-trial stage, recording of evidence, interlocutory proceedings and final adjudication, every judicial process is conducted in digital mode. This ensures procedural continuity, eliminates duplication of work and significantly reduces delays traditionally associated with handling and movement of physical files. All pleadings, orders and entire procedural history of a case are made available through a single, integrated, easy-to-use digital interface".     

He further said, "A defining feature of the Kalpetta digital court's implementation is the integration of artificial intelligence-based judicial assistance tools within the district court management systems". 

"The system is capable of generating structured case summaries from the case record, thereby enabling judges to swiftly comprehend the factual matrix and procedural background of the matters. Interactive question and answer functionality further permits judicial officers to query the system on case-specific aspects", Justice Raja Vijayaraghavan said. 

He added, "Voice to text technology has been integrated to facilitate accurate translation of witness depositions and judicial dictation".