Transforming the Justice Delivery System in India through Innovation and Technology: Opportunities and Limitations of Integrating Technology in the Judicial System

The Constitution of India mandates citizen’s ‘right of access to justice’ and it is the onerous duty of the State to take positive steps in the fulfilment of the right. The ‘right of access to justice’ encompasses within itself two aspects: the right to access courts and tribunals of the country and the right to reasonable speedy and effective justice in any court or tribunal of the country. However, due to huge arrears and pendency of cases in the Indian courts, the State is miserably failing in its constitutional duty to provide right of access to justice. The situation is aggravated due to the spread of pandemic COVID-19 in the year 2020-21, which led to closure of physical court complexes leading to denial of access to justice. With basic infrastructural upgrades, like integration of Information and Communication Technologies in courts, it was seen that India was successfully able to shift its courts on the virtual medium with much ease and success. In the long run, implementing AI-based technologies, like machine learning and natural language processing, to restructure the judicial system will help in reducing the arrears and pendency in the court system. But integration of technology in the judiciary raises some fundamental issues, which needs to be addressed beforehand. At the foremost lies the issue of ‘digital-divide’, which is the disparate distribution of affordable technology among the rural and urban populations of the country. Secondly, the issue of language and the rights of the disabled people. And thirdly, the issue of data privacy with regards to the litigants which is perplexing the dynamics of constitutionalism. It is therefore argued that the policy makers should adopt a principled approach to address the perplexing issues of technology-based solution, for long term integration of technology in the Justice Delivery System.