The Andhra Pradesh High Court has sought responses from the Centre and the State Government on Public Interest Litigation (PIL) which seeks dedicated Optical fibre network with supporting IT infrastructure for District Courts. The Bench of Chief Justice Arup Kumar Goswami and Justice Ninala Jayasurya issued the notice which is to be returned within 8 weeks.
The Delhi High Court had, previous year, while hearing a petition seeking directions for installation of fibre line for internet in Delhi courts for effective virtual hearings, asked the petitioners to represent the issue before the concerned departments first.
As per the Government of India's statement, as many as 2927 Court complexes across India have been connected by a high-speed Wide Area Network (WAN) under e-courts project (till December 2020). Under the e-courts project, one of the largest digital networks of the world was conceived by the Department of Justice along with the e-committee of the Supreme Court of India to connect the 2992 court complexes located all over India by a high-speed Wide Area Network (WAN) via different modes of connectivity such as Optical Fibre Cable (OFC), Radio Frequency (RF), Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT), etc.
Earlier this month, the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had approved the continuation of the Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) for Development of Infrastructure Facilities for Judiciary for another five years from April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2026. The entire cost of the scheme will be Rs. 9,000 crores out of which the Centre will contribute Rs. 5,357 crores including Rs. 50 crores for the implementation of the Gram Nyayalayas Scheme as a part of the National Mission for Justice Delivery and Legal Reforms.
The Himachal Pradesh High Court had recently observed that, the need of the hour is to provide adequate bandwidth, network-attached storage and routers etc. to facilitate the conducting of educational courses, conferences, court proceedings etc. on virtual platform.
