A public interest litigation petition has been filed in the Madras High Court for audio and video recording of the court proceedings; prompt uploading of daily orders and judgments on the court website and provision of Wi-Fi facilities in all court halls besides encouraging the use of monitors, laptops and tablets by judges as well as lawyers.
India Awake for Transparency, a non-profit private entity registered under the Companies Act of 1956 and represented by its Director Rajender Kumar of Mylapore, has filed the case seeking a direction to the High Court’s Registrar-General to implement the changes suggested by the petitioner company in a representation made on November 18.
According to the petitioner, the Madras High Court website was not as good as the one maintained by the Supreme Court and the Bombay High Court which ensure that every is detail of the case is available to the common man at the click of a button.
It wanted the Madras High Court website to be upgraded on a par with that of the Supreme Court. The representation insisted upon doing away with the practice of listing appeals first for condonation of delay, if any, and then once again for hearing it on merits. The petitioner company said both could happen simultaneously thereby saving time.
Referring to the High Court Registry raising many queries on maintainability of cases and refusing to number them, the representation said it was for the courts and not registry to decide upon maintainability. It insisted on use of monitors by judges, as it was done in the Delhi High Court, to read case papers instead of using hard copies.
