As a part of setting up a new milestone in the judicial system of India, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are the first states in the country where Integrated Criminal Justice System (ICJS) will be launched, Supreme Court Judge Madan B Lokur .
Justice Lokur is also inaugurating the first e-court (paperless court) in the High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad for the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
What is Integrated Criminal Justice System (ICJS)?
ICSJS is best defined as the integration of CCTNS (Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems) along with E-Courts, E-prisons, Forensics and Prosecution– the key components of the criminal Justice System. This will ensure that everyone has fast access to the information required not just for investigations but for faster and better prosecution of cases in courts. This system that will connect 15,000 police stations, 5,000 supervisory police officers and various prosecuting and legal agencies will help deal with organized crime and terror throughout India. This project is now fully aligned with the vision of the smart policing and Digital India of the Government of India. As a number of services will be enabled through citizen portal, the Police-Citizen interface will undergo a major shift after the implementation of this project.
Status of ICJS in AP and Telegana:-
The reason behind the launch of this system in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh is that these states have made lot of progress in their Judicial and security sectors. This system will link all the courts, police stations, prosecution, forensic science laboratories and Jails in Telegana and AP. Now the judicial authorities of these states are entered in the process of computerizing the high courts and also trying to bring about uniformity between the data that is available in all the high courts. As per this system, if the judiciary, lawyers, litigants and court staff work together there comes a massive change in justice delivery and access to justice. The concept of e-court involves more usage of electronic paper in the court hall and dispensing with the movement of case records, which consumes time and manpower.
Steps are being taken to install
- digital display boards
- information kiosks
in the complexes of city civil courts Hyderabad and Secunderabad for displaying information of the case hearing status in different courts of the high court and also the case status information in respective court complexes and efforts are being taken to introduce e-filing from June 2017, in order to digitize records in the sub-ordinate courts.