Justice Chandrachud will be remembered for modernising the Courts functions

Justice Chandrachud will be remembered for modernising the Courts functions

Justice Dr D Y Chandrachud's judgments are in the public domain, and the people will scrutinize them when necessary. However, his administrative reforms are momentous. He is credited with introducing live-streaming of court hearings. As a result, most of the High Courts and even the District Judiciary have followed suit.

Now, anybody from any part of the country can watch the court proceedings and the advocates argue their cases. Because of the hybrid hearings, any advocate can argue many cases from around the country, nay the world. There is no need for him/her to rush to the Supreme Court at the time of the hearings. An Advocate can handle many cases by switching with the click of a computer button, which was almost unthinkable before Justice Chandrachud introduced them.

E-filing of the cases and curing of defects have become very easy and time savers for the Advocates. Now the case files can be inspected from anywhere. Cause lists of cases are easily available in Advocates' emails.  Only ten years ago, it used to be said in a lighter vein that going through the thick bundles of cause lists was no less than doing the research. digitalisation has saved crores of trees and a massive amount of money from the courts across the country.

What is most remarkable is that the concerned Advocate is informed through SCI about the case number and its listing date in the Courts, which used to be a Herculean task only a few years ago. Justice Chandrachud will go down in history as a great reformer in the courts' functioning, making them paperless and more people-friendly. I hope that his successors will carry on his legacy by introducing more modern technology like Artificial intelligence (AI).