The Jharkhand judiciary has opened its first data centre at the state high court in Ranchi, launched a new high court website and introduced an iOS application as part of efforts to improve access to case information and speed up the delivery of justice.
Chief Justice of India Justice Surya Kant inaugurated the data centre on Monday in the presence of Supreme Court Justices S Chandrashekhar and Aparesh Kumar Singh, both former judges of the Jharkhand High Court. The initiative places court records and information systems at the centre of the judiciary’s modernisation efforts in the state.
Justice Kant said technical modernisation was necessary because lawyers, litigants and judges all require timely access to information for cases to move efficiently. “Justice should be simplified and made accessible to all,” he said, adding that the availability of information was crucial to delivering justice to the last rung of society.
The CJI also launched the Jharkhand High Court website and the iOS application associated with it. The court did not provide details in the report on the services available through the application or the scale of records that will be managed through the new data centre.
The digital initiative also includes tools for judicial work. Members of the subordinate judiciary were given the artificial intelligence version of the legal software Supreme Today, along with Dragon, a speech-to-text software. The tools are intended to provide technological support to judges and court staff, according to the officials quoted in the report.
Jharkhand High Court Chief Justice MS Sonak described the data centre as a “living memory of the court”, rather than merely a facility containing servers and cables. He said it would safeguard the records of the high court and that digital transformation was a prerequisite for securing justice for all.
Justice Ananda Sen, chairperson of the high court’s Computer and Digitisation Committee, said the data centre would provide technological support to lawyers, litigants and the judiciary. The facility is the first data centre for the judiciary in Jharkhand, according to the report.
The technology announcement was accompanied by a wider call for legal services to reach people who remain distant from courts. Addressing a state-level Legal Services-cum-Empowerment Camp at the Deoghar Civil Court earlier on Monday, Justice Kant said legal assistance should reach the doorsteps of poor and needy people who were unable to approach courts.
He identified legal aid lawyers and judicial volunteers as a bridge between underprivileged residents and the judicial system. Justice Kant urged them to proactively connect people who were unable to secure justice with appropriate legal assistance and court services.
“Legal services must reach even the remotest areas,” the CJI said, setting out a goal of providing legal assistance and justice at people’s doorsteps. He compared the role of reassurance in healthcare and justice, saying that trust and support were important to people seeking help in both systems.
The events in Ranchi and Deoghar link two parts of access to justice: improving the information infrastructure inside courts and extending legal assistance beyond court premises. The next steps for the data centre, website, application and legal-aid outreach were not detailed in the report.
