Kathmandu, May 23:

The Supreme Court is doing homework to introduce ‘e-case hearing’ system in the judiciary.

“We have been doing homework to adopt the system that would help in providing justice easily and quickly,” SC spokesperson Til Prasad Shrestha told this daily today.

If the apex court introduces the facility, one can file a petition in the Supreme Court and

contact it online for a hearing date.

A full-court meeting of apex court judges today discussed the issue. “All the judges were convinced to introduce the system,” Shrestha added.

Justice Ram Kumar Prasad Shaha presented a study report during today’s meeting. A panel led by him had studied the possibility of introducing e-hearing system.

“This is an initial discussion and further consultations are required before introducing the system. The judges are very much enthusiastic about it,” he added. Justice Shaha would present the pros and cons of the plan in future discussions.

If the judiciary executes this plan, one can file his case online from the district court concerned or any authorised cyber centre and find the date for hearing online. “The plan is simple and clear. But reliability and cost aspects need further evaluation,” Shrestha clarified.

The apex court was inspired to go online after seeing a system adopted by the Inland Revenue Department in which the department issues PAN certificates to industrialists through online service. “Since this system is working perfectly there (IRD), we are considering to adopt the same plan in the judiciary too,” he added. The recent amendment to Supreme Court Regulation 1992 has paved way for the SC to use information technology in justice system.

“Most probably we will introduce this project before the end of next fiscal year (mid-July 2009),” he said. He also said the SC would run a pilot project to test the practicability of the system before executing it at full scale.

“This would make the hearing easy for the court users and save their time and cost,” Shrestha said.

“It would be a good news for the common people as it could provide some relief to them at a time when justice is becoming dearer by the day,” advocate Laxman Prasad Acharya said.