Theme: Law in Transition: Reimagining Justice in the 21st Century
Consider a woman in a village whose maintenance case is posted before a magistrate sitting three hours away by bus. Each listing has meant a lost day of earnings, the bus fare and a fresh explanation to her employer. Then the court introduces video hearings. Is that a relief, or a different kind of obstacle? The answer turns on practical matters that talk of “digital justice” rarely mentions. Does she have a handset with a working data pack? Can she find a quiet spot to sit through the hearing? Will anyone show her what to tap?
My argument is that access to justice in a digital age is first a question of rights and only second a question of technology. Digital tools serve people who already have a way into the system, and they quietly shut out the people who never did. Unless courts and lawmakers accept that digital access is part of the promise of justice, and attach enforceable duties to it, the shift online will deepen the divide it was meant to narrow.
The Case for Reform and Constitutional Basis
The case for reform has to be stated first, because the backlog is severe. Figures given to the Lok Sabha as of 28 July 2026 show nearly five crore cases pending in district and subordinate courts, about 64 lakh in the High Courts and roughly 93,000 in the Supreme Court. Those totals leave no room for complacency. Indian constitutional law has long treated delay as a form of denial. Hussainara Khatoon read a right to speedy trial into Article 21, and Anita Kushwaha described access to justice as part of the same article, which implies a forum that is reachable, affordable and timely. Cappelletti and Garth supply a useful lens. They traced three waves of reform: legal aid first, then protection of group interests, then a wider overhaul of procedure. Technology can be seen as part of that last wave, and so it deserves the same test: did it reach the people who had been left outside?
Part of the record passes that test. In 2023 the Union Cabinet cleared the third phase of the eCourts project with a budget of ₹7,210 crore, directed at digital records, paperless courts and remote access. The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita permits trials, inquiries and other proceedings in electronic mode, and years before the pandemic the Supreme Court held in Praful B. Desai that testimony by video conference satisfies the requirement of presence. In Swapnil Tripathi the Court also supported live-streaming of important cases, reasoning that open access to proceedings belongs to access to justice. These are real gains. When the lockdown came, virtual courts kept a working system from stopping altogether, and a litigant living far from the district seat can now attend without losing a day.
Infrastructure and Accessibility Gaps
Still, a service that is available is not necessarily a service that can be used. The National Statistics Office’s telecom survey of early 2025 recorded internet use in the previous three months by 76.7 per cent of men aged fifteen and above, against 63.1 per cent of women. Phone ownership showed a larger gap, at 83.9 per cent for men and 56.2 per cent for women. These are national averages, and the woman described at the outset sits well below them. Nor is infrastructure the whole story. Analysis of the same survey indicates that many households without internet cite missing skills more often than missing coverage. A portal designed around a smartphone, a data plan, an email address and ease with online forms has chosen its users in advance.
The Supreme Court has sketched the legal outline of this problem without applying it to courts themselves. Anuradha Bhasin recognised the internet as a channel for protected speech and trade and held that an open-ended shutdown could not be sustained. Earlier, the Kerala High Court had gone further and placed internet access within the rights to education and privacy under Article 21. If the internet is now the route to the courthouse, the same reasoning applies naturally. A person without it may be unable to file a petition, follow her case or even receive a notice. The step is a short one, but courts have been slow to take it.
A second concern is who benefits. Marc Galanter observed in 1974, writing about American courts, that repeat players with lawyers, resources and a continuing relationship with the system tend to win over one-time litigants. His point carries over to online platforms with uncomfortable ease. A law firm or government department filing hundreds of matters masters the portal’s habits, assigns staff to it and shrugs off a failed upload. A first-time litigant meets the same failure as a closed door. Efficiency, in practice, accrues to whoever files most.
Automation, AI, and Privacy Hazards
There is also the question of what software should be allowed to decide. Translating English judgments into Hindi and regional languages is a clear benefit, since a litigant who cannot read the order in her own case has received little of a remedy. Scheduling tools raise no concern either. The line is crossed when software begins to shape outcomes, because a system cannot give reasons in the way a judge is obliged to. Virginia Eubanks has documented how automated tools in American public services came to police the poor while no one could explain their decisions. The Kerala High Court seems alert to this danger: its 2025 policy prohibits the district judiciary from using AI tools to arrive at findings, reliefs or orders. Article 21 requires a procedure that is just, fair and reasonable, and at its core is a reasoned order from a human being who can be held answerable. Privacy is a quieter hazard. Once records are online and searchable, a woman’s matrimonial dispute or a survivor’s identity may be found by anyone who looks. Puttaswamy recognised informational privacy as a fundamental right, and court portals should be built as though that ruling binds them.
Four Commitments for True Digital Justice
What would digital justice look like if it absorbed these lessons? I suggest four commitments.
- First, the choice of mode should rest with the litigant. Virtual hearings help when a party wants one. If a weaker party, particularly one without a lawyer, prefers to appear in person, the court should not move her online for its own administrative convenience. The electronic mode in the new criminal procedure code is enabling rather than compulsory, and judges should apply it that way.
- Second, help with access should be a public service. The eSewa Kendras in court complexes already assist with filing and case status. The model should extend to taluka level and be linked to the legal services authorities. Article 39A directs the State to secure equal opportunity in the legal system and to provide free legal aid, and section 12 of the Legal Services Authorities Act gives women, children and members of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, among others, a right to free legal services. Legal aid that stops at the lawyer and overlooks the phone, the form and the portal is only half a service. Trained para-legal volunteers who can sit beside a litigant during a hearing would supply much of the rest.
- Third, tools must be accountable. Courts should publicly state which software they use and for what purpose. No tool should influence a judicial finding, and every order should be written by a judge.
- Fourth, outcomes must be measured. The National Judicial Data Grid reports how many cases are pending, but not who files online, who attends virtually, from which districts, or who drops out midway. Without such data, success is judged by how modern the system appears. Richard Susskind, among the strongest advocates of online courts, still describes their purpose as widening access for those the current system excludes. Our yardstick should be the same.
Return to the woman at the bus stop. A video link does nothing for her if the network fails, if the only phone in the house is her husband’s, or if the portal runs in a language she cannot read. It does a great deal if a para-legal volunteer in her block can set it up, if the choice of hearing is hers, and if the order that follows is reasoned by a judge. The technology in both scenarios is the same. The difference lies in whether the legal system accepted that her ability to use it was its responsibility as well. Digital courts will be judged on that, and not on how quickly a petition is filed or how many screens a courtroom contains. The real test is whether the person who most needed a remedy was finally able to reach one.
Footnotes
- Jammu Kashmir High Court Pendency Rises to 44,551 Cases; Subordinate Courts Cross 3.65 Lakh, Centre Tells Lok Sabha, Kashmir Life.
- Hussainara Khatoon v. Home Sec’y, State of Bihar, (1980) 1 S.C.C. 81 (India).
- Anita Kushwaha v. Pushap Sudan, (2016) 8 S.C.C. 509 (India).
- Mauro Cappelletti & Bryant Garth, Access to Justice: The Newest Wave in the Worldwide Movement to Make Rights Effective, 27 Buff. L. Rev. 181 (1978).
- Press Info. Bureau, Gov’t of India, Cabinet Approves Phase III of the eCourts Project (Sept. 13, 2023).
- Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, No. 46 of 2023, § 530, India Code (2023).
- State of Maharashtra v. Praful B. Desai, (2003) 4 S.C.C. 601 (India).
- Swapnil Tripathi v. Supreme Court of India, (2018) 10 S.C.C. 628 (India).
- Nat’l Stat. Off., Ministry of Stat. & Programme Implementation, Gov’t of India, Comprehensive Modular Survey: Telecom 2025 (May 2025).
- Sneha Thomas, One Nation, Many Disconnects: Mapping India’s Home Internet Gaps, Ctr. for Econ. Data & Analysis, Ashoka Univ. (2025).
- Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India, (2020) 3 S.C.C. 637 (India); Faheema Shirin R.K. v. State of Kerala, 2019 SCC OnLine Ker 2976 (India).
- Marc Galanter, Why the “Haves” Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change, 9 Law & Soc’y Rev. 95 (1974).
- Virginia Eubanks, Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor (2018).
- High Court of Kerala, Policy Regarding Use of Artificial Intelligence Tools in District Judiciary (July 19, 2025).
- Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, (1978) 1 S.C.C. 248 (India).
- Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v. Union of India, (2017) 10 S.C.C. 1 (India).
- India Const. art. 39A; Legal Services Authorities Act, No. 39 of 1987, § 12, India Code (1987).
- Richard Susskind, Online Courts and the Future of Justice (2019).