CII and Thomson Reuters to host conference on speedy justice in New Delhi

Industry body CII and Thomson Reuters will host a a legal conference, Technology to Enable Speedy and Accessible Justice in New Delhi on 12 January 2013, aimed at helping clear the huge backlog of pending cases in various courts in the country.

The conference will bring together leaders from the Indian judiciary, government, technology sector, advisory institutions, corporate and academia, to discuss the present challenges faced by legal professionals and how technology can help overcome those problems.

The conference will have a special focus on the areas of court procedures management, documentation and communications between the courts and other organizations, as well as the infrastructure network required to scale such technology across all levels of the Indian judiciary system.

Justice Madan B Lokur, Supreme Court of India, Justice A K Sikri, chief justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, advocate Fali S Nariman, eminent constitutional expert and Justice Paul H Anderson, associate justice, Supreme Court of Minnesota together will address this day-long conference.

Two panel discussions will be held to debate and shed light on the use of technology in the workflow management of the courts to improve transparency, efficiency and accessibility; and the key transformational technology initiatives introduced by the government since 2007.

According to conference chairman Lalit Bhasin, ''The Indian judiciary and government have launched many initiatives to issues of pendency and transparency in the courts, which have resulted in our courts getting equipped with IT infrastructure and moving towards development of technology to manage court workflows. This conference gives us an opportunity to understand the objectives of these initiatives; current status and impact and perhaps deliberate further to accelerate the results.'' 

Highlighting the need for judiciary to adopt technology Swarup Choudhury, managing director, Thomson Reuters, India said, ''Telecommunications and internet technology have changed how we function in today's world.  Legal practices all over the world have become technologically advanced, creating a pressure on judiciary to not only adapt to the change but also take advantage of the new developments that may enhance the delivery of its own services.  The seminar will serve as a platform to showcase how technology can aide legal and judiciary by providing critical information, decision support tools software and workflow management services '', he added.

The conference will also see the launch of a book tilted ''Developing the Discourse on Judicial Education'' published by Thomson Reuters Legal.