Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sharad Arvind Bobde on Saturday inaugurated India's first-ever E-resource centre Nyay Kaushal at Judicial Officers Training Institute in Nagpur. According to officials, Nyay Kaushal will facilitate e-filling of cases in the Supreme Court, any High Court and district courts across the country.
Speaking at the event, CJI Bobde said, "The pandemic was something as if the heavens fell. When we started the courts after vacation this thing had begun. Everything appeared to be dangerous. We tried to let the Supreme Court function in a restricted way. But one walk around the Supreme Court building with my colleagues showed us that it was not possible." As far as the courts were concerned, he said, it was like the heavens had fallen. "There is a phrase 'let justice be done though the heavens may fall," the CJI added.
CJI Bobde praised the efforts by the Supreme Court judges, Chief Justices and Judges of the High Courts and judges of the district courts and technical staff for continuing virtual hearings and managing to ensure that the courts functioned and that the rule of law was maintained.
"While justice continued to be administered uninterrupted, access to justice became technology dependent. Technological dependence created an obvious distinction between those who could afford the technology and those who could not," CJI Bobde said.
"This created an unintended inequality. I am told that some advocates suffered so much that they had to switch to selling vegetables. There were reports that some people wanted to end their practice and some wanted to end their lives," he added.
CJI Bobde said that we must place an emphasis on making this technology available everywhere.
Meanwhile, with 48,648 fresh COVID-19 infections, India's caseload rose to 81,37,119 on Saturday, while the number of recoveries crossed the 74-lakh mark, pushing the recovery rate to 91.34 per cent, according to the Union Health Ministry data.
The country's COVID-19 death toll climbed to 1,21,641 with 551 new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed.
A total of 74,32,829 people have recuperated from COVID-19 so far, taking the national recovery rate to 91.34 per cent. The case fatality rate has dropped to 1.49 per cent.
The number of active COVID-19 cases remained below 6 lakh for the second consecutive day.
There are 5,82,649 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country, which comprise 7.16 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated.
India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23 and 40 lakh on September 5.
It went past 50 lakh on September 16, 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11 and crossed 80 lakh on October 29.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, a total of 10,87,96,064 samples had been tested for COVID-19 up to October 30. Of these, 10,67,976 samples were tested on Friday.
