“Supreme Court will shortly feature in National Judicial Data Grid” says Justice Chandrachud
Justice DY Chandrachud today informed that the Supreme Court will shortly feature in National Judicial Data Grid, a national data base of data relating to cases pending and disposed of in all district and taluka courts of the country.
It is to be noted that Justice Chandrachud is the chairperson of e committee of the Supreme Court charged with the task of adoption of new technologies and to devise a National Policy and Action Plan to implement Information Communication and Technology in courts.
The above transpired in a case where the Supreme Court had asked the government to constitute a Committee to adopt ICT (Information and Communication Technology) initiatives to streamline, monitor and provide seamless integration of all stages in government revenue litigation across the board. The court had further informed the government that it will monitor the progress made by the committee every three months.
On 7th March 2022, Court ordered that in order to enable it to have a realistic assessment of whether the steps have been yielding any results, it would be appropriate if real time statistics are made available to the Court on the following aspects
a) The number of SLPs which have been filed before this court after 1st September 2021 involving the revenue arm of the Union Government;
b) The number of SLPs which were filed within limitation; and
c) The number of SLPs filed beyond limitation.
ASG Balbir Singh, appearing for the government submitted that a total of 192 SLPs have been filed involving the revenue arm of government and that all have been filed within the relaxed period of limitation period as allowed during by the order of the court extending the time of limitation. He further submitted that 75 appeals were filed against order of CESTAT out of which 26 were filed within the relaxed limitation period. Singh submitted that “Integration of CESTAT and LIMBS (Legal Information Management and Briefing System) Portal is in progress. National Informatics Centre teams of CESTAT and LIMBS Portal are coordinating the integration of database of CESTAT with LIMBS Portal.”
The Supreme Court bench of Justices Chandrachud and Surya Kant on hearing the submissions directed the president of CESTAT to look into the same and ensure that the integration happens soon.
On conclusion of the hearing Justice Chandrachud remarked “Something has been happening on this front.” Singh replied to this submitting that the improvement in technology has largely reduced the delay.
Case title: CCE & ST Surat Vs Bilfinder Neo Structo Solutions