Virtual Courts may not be the Substitute to Physical Courts, but They have Come to Stay

    

    The more we get aged, the more diffident we become in adopting the new technology or anything new because our mental blocks often come into the play. This is what we find in the functioning of the courts as most of the judges and the lawyers have been pursuing a set pattern of filing, removing defects, appearing, and arguing before the courts. Most of us have become habitual of the system that has been in the vogue for decades together. Judges have also followed the same trend year after year. This is the reason that most of the aged and comparatively old judges usually pose mental resistance in adopting the new technology. The same is the case with the elderly lawyers, court staffs and the persons manning the registry.

    Although the introduction of modern technology in the courts have started for quite a long time it has not got expected result and speed until very late. We have been hearing about the paperless courts but to the best of our knowledge, only a few of the judges of the Delhi High Court has been able to dispense with the paper files. These judges certainly deserve kudos for being technology savvy. Majority of the judges have, however, been using the files in the physical form to which they have been accustomed to for many long years in the profession. In the Supreme Court, the E-filing was introduced nearly 15 years ago but it was more only for the namesake. Most of the advocates have been filing their cases in the physical form (hard copy) as it has been easier for them. The new generation of lawyers and the registry staff have albeit, been very enthusiastic in changing over to the new system propelled by the new technology.

    Thanks to COVID 19, everything has gone topsy-turvy. The efforts for change over to new technology have started with all seriousness in the last two and a half months. Credit goes to young and enthusiastic engineers of information technology and the strong desires of some of the judges, who have been able to transform the functioning in the courts by removing the hurdles and obstacles with breakneck speed. Many judges have really worked extremely hard for switching over to the new system of Virtual Courts where everything is done by the technology. Hopefully, in the days to come it will become indispensable and the most-liked form of conducting the cases right from the Supreme Court to the lower courts. The problem, in fact, in lower courts may not be as difficult as in the higher courts because the new breed of the judges, who get their entry at the younger age and is more adaptable to the new technology. There is no doubt that the technology will help in the expeditious disposal of the cases ensuring un-delayed justice to litigants.

    Here I wish to narrate my personal experience. Although I have been using the PC for more than three decades and the Laptop for two decades, yet it has been mostly remained confined to sending and receiving emails or for composing works. Except for personal emails, almost all other composing work has been done by my assistant colleagues in the office. WhatsApp and Twitter came very late and I am still not very conversant in handling the different aspects of WhatsApp and the Facebook etc, What has, however, aroused and stirred me to write on it, is my first experience of the Virtual Court, which I have had it the day before yesterday i.e. on 26^th of May. I was informed by the text message from the Registry of the Supreme Court, two days in the advance about the case which was listed in my name before Virtual Court number 8. I was asked to upload my appearance on the given email and on the morning of 26^th May, half an hour before the hearing started, I was given a link to get myself appeared before the court. I must confess that it could not have been possible for me to tide over the initial glitches without the help of my young lawyer son Utkarsh Pandey.  He made me amazingly comfortable and told me that when the item number was called, I must show myself.   Lo and behold! the magic screen was opened, and I presented my case. All the nervousness was gone and got converted into a thrill and excitement.

    This is certainly not something to boast of, but the purpose of this post is certainly to enthuse and inspire all advocates and implore them not to be hesitant in arguing and conducting their cases before the Virtual Courts. Some minor problems may crop up, but they will certainly instil a new sense of confidence.  The more we get accustomed to the new technology the better it is for the advancement of the judicial system.

     There are many advantages which can be enumerated in the introduction of new technology. It is bound to bring more transparency and would be quite helpful in eradication of the corruption. My friend, Advocate Shreepal Singh agrees with the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari that technology will work wonders in the days to come. Everything will be so open that the danger to privacy will become real. The biggest gain will be in maintaining the competence of the high standards. The paperless offices and courts will save thousands of tons of paper every year. Trees will be saved, and the balance of the ecology and the environment will be easy to maintain. Corruption is an inherent part of human handling, but technology will ensure transparency and non-manipulation at different levels. It may be noted here that only a  decade ago a Non-Resident Indian litigant from London sat on a dharna outside the Supreme Court because he had found that his case, which used to be listed on many dates was getting deleted without assigning any reason thereof. He had doubted that some persons were able to get his case deleted by greasing the palms of some persons in the registry.  Now when there will hardly be any human interface, the chances of corruption will be considerably minimised.

    However, there will be many insurmountable difficulties for the lawyers. It will be difficult for them to find the cases for conducting without face to face interactions with the clients.  The bantering, the wits, the warmth, and the repartees will be missing in the Virtual Courts.  It is always a pleasure of meeting the lawyers in the courtrooms and barrooms and exchanging pleasantries and learning many nuances of advocacy in the courtrooms. Here my son tells me that it can be compensated to a large extent if the all the proceedings of the courts are live-streamed; so that anybody can watch them. The live streaming of the court proceedings will, undoubtedly, instil and inculcate more confidence of the people in the judiciary. Besides, it will be more meaningful and useful for both lawyers and litigants as well. Virtual Courts may not be the substitute to the physical courts, but they have become inevitable when the technology is moving inexorably.

China’s Game to drive Wedge Between India and Nepal Must be Defeated

 Pandit Arjun Prasad Bastola, a Sanskrit and Vedic scholar, who is also on the Board of Pashupatinath temple is a well-wisher of India. He once told me that relationship between India and Nepal is like warp and woof from time immemorial and that cannot be separated. Two of the most sacred shrines, Pashupatinath and Vaikunthdham are situated in Nepal, and every Hindu nurse desire to visit those places. Nepal has its presence in almost all important religious places of India. Nepali temple of Varanasi is one of the important religious/tourist places in North India. Millions of Nepalese live in India and lakhs of Indians live in Nepal. They have far and wide business interests. Thousands of Indians and Nepalese have their relatives on both sides of the border. There is no language problem of communication between the two countries. So much so, Hindi and Nepali both are written in the same Devnagari script. Buddhism has more deep and pervasive effect in Nepal than that of India, the place of its birth. Shri Bastola's observations are like eye-openers. During his Delhi-visits he prefers to stay in Jain Dharamshala of Gole Market but then that has nothing to do with what I wish to say here.

   For the last few days, there has been a war of words from the side of Nepal regarding a road that is being built by India for strengthening the defence supply as well as to facilitating smooth passage for pilgrims to Kailash Man Sarovar Yatra in Tibet.  Nepal is doing it at the behest of China, which has become a hegemonistic superpower because of cheating, browbeating, bullying and authoritarian policies. She has never fought any war against any country except, of course, minor skirmishes here and there. She promised the end of all labour laws, twenty-four uninterrupted water and electric supply and good roads to accord red carpet welcome to multinational companies. Later she stole their technologies to gain upper hand over the countries from where these companies came to set up their manufacturing units. This is all clear from the very revealing book ‘The Hundred -Year Marathon’ of Michael Pillsbury. China has never been straight in its diplomacy. Of late, she has been perturbed over the emergence of India as a global power and its proximity with many countries particularly the USA. That is why she wants to needle India through her neighbours like Sri Lanka and Nepal.

   For the last nearly three decades China has been able to hypnotize Nepal through the Communist Party of Nepal, which is out to destroy everything for which Nepal can rightfully boast of. China has set up moles in the Nepalese administration, politics, and business by heavily bribing some people. Bribery is the name of the game in which China has got no parallel in the world. One of the Indian journalists has filed a case in the court with abundant proofs that Chinese companies, like Alibaba, have been paying bribes to Indian politicians, bureaucrats, media persons and even businesspersons to take roots in India. Pakistan has always been against India and it gets emboldened due to brazen support of  China.

    India will do well to align with all countries of the world to expose the chicanery and dangerous policies of China as it is now  well known that she was trying to exterminate the world through biological weapons like Coronavirus. Luckily the world has seen through its game of deceiving the world through its puppet Director-General of WHO. India must scale up its diplomatic efforts to soothe the feelings of Nepal, which has been ruffled because of the mischievous needling of the Dragon.

   My heart is filled with praise for the Senior Advocate Swaraj Kaushal for his 11 beautiful tweets  addressed to famous Bollywood actress Manisha Koirala. He has recounted the history of his relationship with her grandfather and has addressed her as the daughter. Shri Kaushal besides being an accomplished Advocate is also a senior politician. He is one of the few Advocates, who I used at least twice a week before the lockdown in the Supreme Court. Designated as a Senior Advocate by the Supreme Court at the age of 34, he hardly wears the senior's gown and the coat to show off his importance. He is perhaps the one and the only Advocate who happened to be the Advocate General of Mizoram before becoming the Governor of the same state. His wife late Ms Sushma Swaraj was one of the finest politicians of India. Therefore, the Government of India will do well to take the help of Shri Swaraj Kaushal and Pandit Arjun Prasad Bastola to ensure that the Chinese game plan to drive a wedge between India and Nepal is squarely defeated.

Yogi Govt. Deserves Laurels for Handling Migrant Workers’ Crisis

    It will not be an exaggeration to say that the way the problems of migrant workers and the students scattered in many parts of the country have been handled by Yogi the Aditynath government of Uttar Pradesh deserve kudos. Uttar Pradesh happens to be the passage of the migrant workers of other states, therefore, it had to bear major brunt than other states. Remember the crowd of migrant workers, which was made to assemble at Anand Vihar Bus Terminal only a few days after the first lockdown. Most of them were from Delhi. Thus, it was the primary responsibility of the government of Delhi to have taken care of them but instead of that, the buses of DTC were arranged to ferry them to Anand Vihar Bus Station. Yogi government did the splendid job by arranging hundreds of buses to take them to their native places in Uttar Pradesh and those who belonged to Bihar and Jharkhand were dropped at the border. State governments were requested to take them to their respective places.

    There have been several videos of migrant workers where they have expressed satisfaction over the treatment by the UP Police. A new, humane, and benign face of the UP Police came to the fore during the lockdown, which was applauded by everybody. Even now most of the workers prefer to assemble in NOIDA and Ghaziabad instead of Delhi reiterating their faith in the arrangements of the UP government.

   The other glorious work of the UP government was to bring hundreds of students from Kota in fully sanitised buses. It won the laurels of the students and their parents, who felt obliged to the UP government for what it did to them. Taking a cue from the UP government other state governments also planned to bring the students of their states from Kota and other places. Besides, every household belonging to the EWS category has been distributed six Kilograms of ration and Rs. 1000/ to meet the crisis of COVID-19.

     Therefore, the game of one-upmanship, which was played by Priyanka Vadra in the name of arranging one thousand buses to help migrant workers has completely boomeranged on her for many reasons. Firstly, she and her party did not bother about a large number of migrant workers of Punjab, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh but she volunteered to help the UP government to score the political brownie points. If at all, she was genuinely interested in helping the migrant workers she should have taken care of the workers of the aforementioned states to drop them to their native places. Therefore, the offer made by Ms Priyanka Vadra was hollow, insincere and reeked of dirty politics.

    Secondly, if she was pitying the migrant workers, she should have made proper arrangements for buses and not tempos, motorcycles and trucks. It was for anybody to see that fleet of buses which was exhibited for photos and videos belonged to Rajasthan government. If the Rajasthan government was so serious about the workers, why did it not do for those who were stranded there and wanted to go to their homes? Moreover, it should first bring the Rajasthani workers who are still stuck up in other states. To top it all, if the arrangements for the buses were to be made by Rajasthan government, why did Ms Priyanka Vadra want to steal the limelight?

  The bigger problem is awaiting to all states. With the exodus of migrant workers, there will be an acute problem of the workforce in all the industrialised places. Therefore, the state governments will have to structure the solution to retain those workers who have still not left to their native places and bring back those who have already gone to their homes. The ideal situation will be to generate employment for the workers at the local level so that they do not feel emotionally and socially alienated from the ambience in which they have been born and brought up.

Not Floods or Quakes but Virus may Destroy Civilisation

  It is said that famines, floods, earthquakes, and volcanic disruptions have been the main causes of catastrophes which destroyed lives and livestock, flora, and fauna. Many civilizations have been obliterated due to these calamities. We have read in our schools and colleges that the mighty Himalayas sprung up from Tethys sea because of the huge volcanic disruptions which took place more than five crores years ago. We often read that because of global warming, some of the low-lying islands will be swallowed by the oceans.

   We have been also taught that there had been many civilizations like those of the Indus Valley, Egyptian and Roman, which met apocalypse because of the turbulence from beneath the earth or due to the natural calamities like floods and epidemics. We have still not been able to decipher the scripts of those civilizations, astounding advancements of their architectures, civic facilities and town plantings etc.,  Pyramids of Egypt amaze us to no end and we have not been able to find out as to which civilization was prevailing those days. Mother earth and nature throw wonder after wonder from time immemorial.

   According to Hindu Dharm Shashtras,  when the entire world was deluged, the Shrishti (life) again started with Manu and Shatrupa. It is said that neither quake nor inundation but the deadly Virus will bring the apocalypse. The precursor can be seen in COVID 19. Coronavirus might not have spread far and wide if we had not been able to develop the winged Aeroplanes. The virus that started from the Wuhan city of China has spread to almost all countries of the world because of the intermingling of fast the people of different countries due mainly to the fast transportation from China (Wuhan). It is also alleged that the coronavirus is manmade, and the world is getting punished for the crimes committed by China, which has now emerged as the enemy of humanity.

     It is again a matter of huge satisfaction that modern science would be able to invent the vaccine sooner or later to beat this deadly virus. The science will, hopefully, prove to be the saviour of humanity. But it is a double-edged weapon. While prudent scientists bring miracles, unscrupulous ones cause the doom. The world will do well to isolate such forces which are engaged in causing large scale deaths and destructions. A stitch in time, as they say, saves nine.

Freedom from Black Coat and Gown: a Laudable Decision

     Corona pandemic has brought a piece of welcome news for lawyers and judges. The Hon'ble Supreme Court of India has dispensed with, albeit temporarily, from the pain of wearing an unwieldy gown and black coat. The Delhi High Court has been giving relaxation from wearing a gown for some months every year for the last so many years, but the Supreme Court has never been generous and liberal in easing the dress code. As a matter of fact, the gowns are totally alien and unsuitable for Indian climate. Black coats should be made mandatory only during the winter season. This decision has been spurred due to the fear of the infection of the Coronavirus but even then, it is a welcome step of the Supreme Court and must be adhered to for all time to come.

    Black coat and gown is a colonial hangover and it should have been discarded long back but why the Bar Council of India, a representative and elective body of the lawyers thought it fit to retain this dress code is inexplicable. A fallacious argument is advanced by persons with servile mentality is that black colour is a symbol of dignity, honour, wisdom and justice. Therefore, to keep up those values and maintain the grace of the profession the black gown and coat has been prescribed for the lawyers and judges. People make fun of this dress code and some of them audaciously say that judges and lawyers wear the black dress to conceal their black deeds. It may be very objectionable but how can one prevent the public from weaving and spreading such malicious stories and canards?

    Lawyers are the warriors of justice. Doctors wear white coat and apron from a hygienic point of view. Police persons wear Khaki as it saves them from dust and stains although now it has become the symbol of authority and power. All three limbs of Indian force have a different sartorial dress, but nobody looks as grotesque as the judges and lawyers in the black coat and gown, who wear it even during the sweltering and perspiring heat. The dress should be sober and dignified but how does this black dress qualify to that criterion is indeed very baffling?

   One can understand the white-band as the symbol of innocence and purity and so is the white shirt but the black coat and the gown serve no such purpose except differentiating the wearers ( the judges and the lawyers) from others but then that purpose can be served by the more elegant dress of the shirt and the band. Some say black means opaque and in the adversarial system of justice both sides remain unknown until they are buttressed by the law and that is why the black coat and the gown. But the system should not be outlandish and outrageous, it must conform to the climate and the culture of the country.

   It must also be borne in mind that even after the independence, the judges wore wigs on their heads while sitting on the pulpit of justice, which was very rightly given up after some years. The judicial system must be organic and must be ready to change according to the call and needs of the time. This is the time when the dress code should be changed to a white shirt with the band except for winter when the black coat should be made compulsory. 

Form of Dress or Robes To Be Worn By Advocates
[Rule Under Section 49(1) (GG) of The Act]

Advocates, appearing in the Supreme Court, High Court, subordinate courts, tribunals or authorities shall wear the following as part of their dress which shall be sober and dignified;
Advocates other than lady advocates:
1. (a) a black buttoned-up coat, chapkan, achkan, black sherwani and white bands with advocate’s gown, or
(b) a black open breast coat, white-collar, stiff or soft, and white bands with advocates’ gowns.
In either case long trousers (white, black, striped or grey) or dhoti.

Lady advocates:
2. (a) black and full or half-sleeve jacket or blouse, white-collar, stiff or soft, and white bands with Advocates’ gowns;
(b) sarees or long skirts (white or black or any mellow or subdued colour without any print or design) or flares (white, black or black-striped or grey):
Provided that the wearing of advocate’s gown shall be optional except when appearing in the Supreme Court or in a High Court.
Provided further that in a court other than the Supreme Court, High Court, District Court, Sessions Court or City Civil Court, a black-tie may be worn instead of bands.”

Life in the Time of Corona Without Electricity

     Watching the unmanageable crowd outside the liquor shops is highly distressing in the Corona times. Even a layman would agree that the government should not have allowed the liquor and wine shops to be opened at a time when the war against Corona is in full swing. God forbid if the booze crowd becomes the super spreader of the virus then one shudders to think of the consequences. The entire exercise of the lockdown will be tossed in the air and everything will come to nought.

    This is for the first time in the known history of humankind that any pandemic has enveloped the entire world. Even countries with very sound economies are puffing and panting and have not been able to contain the virus as successfully as India has done.  From that standpoint, India has certainly done remarkably well to flatten the curb of Coronavirus. While in any other country the people would have chastised those, who claimed that virus could not harm because Allah was with them. Such persons should have got a rap on their knuckles and sent to jails but not in India, where they get the open support even from those who boast to have the monopoly over wisdom. Their policy is that people may go to hell, but they will oppose the government.

    I feel that those who have been working in the 'generation and distribution' of electricity deserve to be given the heroic honour of the Corona warriors. It does not mean to belittle the stupendous work that is being done by the Army, Police, Doctors/ Nurses, or the suppliers of the essential commodities during the period of this unprecedented calamity. But think of days without a regular supply of electricity in this twenty-first century when the population of the country is nearly is 135 crores. That too when all villages and every household have got an electric connection.  In cities, which are like the jungles of concrete, where houses are small and multistoried, life without electricity would have been, no less than, a horrible hell. The Work from Home concept would have been impossible.  Lights, fans, air conditioners and other gadgets would have been useless. Television, Netflix and other sources of information and entertainment would have been a mirage. The life would have gone back to the dark ages.  Laptops, computers and Mobile phones, which are'like an office in the pocket', would not have been charged in the absence of electricity rendering them totally useless. Therefore, no amount of words would be able to describe the importance of electricity and the contribution of those who are managing it. The government did well to honour the Corona warriors by showering flowers on them but the personnel in the electricity department also deserve the same honour as other warriors.

   Life in the time of Corona has been extremely hard and frightening. Those who have little resources to survive, and the number of such hapless persons is exceedingly high, life for them is really horrendous. The predominantly large number of people in this country is hand to mouth and therefore it is too much to expect to have saved enough to sustain in this long period of forced holiday.

  All said and done, life in rural areas is not as much bad as it is in the urban areas. That is why there is a rush of people going back from cities to their villages. This Coronavirus has proved all the top sociologist and social thinkers of the country wrong, who have been regularly mouthing against the villages. So much so, even Baba Saheb Ambedkar had disapproved the villages because he considered them to be the centres of feudalism and symbols of backwardness. Therefore, the process urbanization must be accelerated. 

   The policy of rapid urbanization has been vigorously followed in last more than seventy year after independence. Now we realise that the rural areas are like a bulwark against such catastrophes which we pray should never happen. But should we not give more importance to villages, which have been denied to them so far?     

Life in the Time of Corona and After

      Today one young man, who was standing ahead of me at the ‘Safal’, which is the retail network of fruits and vegetables in Delhi appeared to be in forlorn mood. I overheard him talking to his friend on the other end of his cellphone that ‘ love’ and ‘dating’ have become the biggest casualty in the Corona times because of Parks, Hotels, Restaurants,  Schools, Colleges, most of the offices and other public places are closed. This appears to be a genuine cause of huge concern of the young boys and girls. Marriages, birthdays and anniversary-celebrations look like things of the past. There is every possibility that post-Corona life will not remain the same as it used to be before Corona. Distancing is going to be an acceptable norm. This will have both positive and negative effects.

     Many famous books have been written on the epidemics and their fallouts on society. For example, the Nobel Prize winner Latin American journalist turned writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote a beautiful book “Love in the Time of Cholera”. It is a delicious comedy and an astonishing love story. This is a lengthy novel which is rich and brilliant with emotions and extraordinary poeticization of old age. This novel is the epitome of spontaneity and vitality.

     The story spans more than half a century and it vividly describes how the epidemic of Cholera drove two young lovers to different secluded places. They again met with each other after more than fifty years when they were past their vitality and young age. Separated by the epidemic of Cholera, the women protagonists of the novel waited for many years for her ‘love’ but when he was found nowhere, she got married and bore many children. The man, of course, remained unmarried. As fate would have it, her husband died and her grown-up children got busy in their own works and worlds. What a coincident! both met again, and the ember of love fired in them. This is an example of enduring love which found a new life in the twilight of their life. The novel is a celebration of love between men and women. 

   Similarly, the famous French writer Albert Camus wrote a beautiful novel ‘The Plague’, which was published in 1947. This novel is centred at the Algerian city of Oran. In the month of April, thousands of rats’ stagger into the open fields to die. The death of rats in bulks create panic hysteria in the entire city. Their death gave an inkling of the epidemic called plague. Even in India, our grandparents used to narrate stories that people were getting frightened by the deaths of rats as they were considered to be the precursor and ominous portents of imminent epidemic Cholera.

     Likewise, many stories and books have been written on smallpox.  People were so much afraid of it that this disease was called ‘Mata’ (diety mother) in rural areas. The persons suffering from the disease of smallpox were invariably getting quarantined and utmost cleanliness used to be observed. Thousands and lakhs were dying every year because of smallpox before the invention of the vaccination. Therefore, the invention of the vaccine for smallpox is no less than a miraculous boon for millions and millions of people across the world. Before its invention, the isolation was the only remedy as it is today in the case of Corona.

    However. the epidemic, rather pandemic of this nature and magnitude, which we are witnessing at the time of Coronavirus also known as Covid-19 was never known in the history. This is also known as Wuhan virus, but nobody has been able to find the reason for the origin of this deadly and invisible virus. Many say that the government of China, which has little faith in humanity was engaged in preparing the biological weapons and in the process, the Coronavirus got slipped out of the labs. It spread with breakneck spread because of the highspeed aviation facilities. Thus, KOVID-19 took the entire world into its grip within no time.  While technological development has brought the world closer to each other it has also brought many concomitant evils with itself.

   Earlier a family or a village was getting quarantined, and the spread of the virus was contained but now due to the faster modes of movements, the frequent intermingling of people from one place to the other has become extremely easy, the containment of the virus has become difficult. The swift mode of transportation is, therefore, attributed to be the super spreader of the disease. 

    It is hoped that geniuses and persons with fertile minds would get the necessary theme for writing stories and books on ‘The Life in the Time of Corona.’ Words like ‘lockdown’, ‘hotspot’ and ‘social distancing’  have already got into the lexicon of conversations and writings.

    Unemployment will increase and it will take many years to bring life on the rails. The economy has already gone into shambles, not only in India but throughout the world. The positive side of it is that the expenses will be reduced to the bare minimum. And what could not be done to control the pollution even after spending billions of dollars all over the world has been controlled due to Corona. Sky has become clear. Rivers have become significantly clean and it is reported that human-friendly Dolphins have been seen in the Ganges even at upstream places like Meerut. Therefore, one thing is sure that the life of the people across the world will not remain the same in the post Corona period. It will be changed possibly for a very very long time.