By SUNIL Sonkar

DELHI, India: Delhi high court creates history by showcasing e-courtroom in India, the first in the country on Tuesday. The judges will be now moving from gavel-hammering to touchscreen handbooks.

On Tuesday it was the court of Justice S Ravindra Bhat that had sleek and wide LCD screen and the bulky files was replaced with a touchscreen handbook.

This move of the Delhi High Court was the launch of its first eco-friendly initiative of going paperless and also bringing speedy justice.

The court is targeting of digitalizing all the documents within two years so that the judges can directly access them on a display monitor. This is a pilot project and the first day was smooth enough.

For the there were listed 33 matters and 18 of the cases were disposed of within two hours only, which otherwise would take the entire day. The corrections of the cases were made on special LCD touchscreen of the judge along with his digital signature to certify the copy.

According to the lawyers, the concept is worth a thumbs-up. They said there were no glitches during the proceedings.

Lawyer Swagat Sharma said, “We will be able to get rid of our bulky files. Now we have to carry only a USB device or CD of our case, which is much easier.” He was present in the e-court.

However, some counsel still preferred to make use of the paper files. This is just to give them an option for the time being.

Around 5.5 crore papers have already been digitalized to various cases upto 2007. Recording of witnesses’ statement witnesses through video-conferencing is also being considered to avoid procedural delays.