ARITIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND JUDICIARY

Author: MAYANK JHA (Student B.B.A. LL.B., V Year), FIMT School of Law (GGSIPU)

Science and technology are based on a word- SUPPOSE. The ultimate goal of science is to expand the circumference of the knowledge while the aim of technology is to apply that knowledge. Science and technology both are interrelated and interdependent on each other. It consists of multiple innovative process. Someone rightly said that- “Necessity is the mother of invention”. In the 21st century, when we are considering whole world as a global village as well as digital world. Because of which the burden of work and pressure tend to increase in the last two three decades. But to simplify and for the eradication of unnecessary workload, tension and unnecessary exaggeration, science and technology developed a new idea of “Artificial Intelligence”. But, what exactly it is let’s try to find out.

INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL + INTELLIGENCE Artificial intelligence is a broad area of computer science that makes machine seem like they have human intelligence. The goal of artificial intelligence is to mimic the human brain and create systems that can function intelligently and independently. Artificial Intelligence actually used to power the technology. AI can manifest itself in many different ways. If you have ever asked Alexa to order your food or browse Netflix movie suggestions, you are actually interacting with AI, without realizing it and that is kind of the point. AI is designed in a way you don’t realize that there is a machine calling the shots in near future. AI is expected to become a little less artificial and a lot more intelligent. As artificial intelligent obviously take on the role of an intelligent worker while most of the repetitive and largely time-oriented tasks can be automated using AI. We will still need

human experts who can build and maintain these synthetic, work on the strategic and creative aspects of a job.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: WHAT IS THE NEED IN JUDICIARY Steps of artificial intelligence in judicial process is just like, a newly married bride enters in her new house. Our courts need a new life. The reason is pendency, over burden and not having proper infrastructure. To reduce the pendency of cases and for proper eradication of burden from the Supreme Court last year (in 2020) the SC developed a software called SCI- Interact to make all its 17 benches paperless. Supreme Court also taken some other initiatives like- LIMBS. LIMBS is a web-based application for monitoring cases involving the Government of India, in a more effective and transparent manner. It is an initiative of the Department of Legal Affairs (DoLA), Ministry of law and justice, and aims to digitalize the legal process and monitor the entire life cycle of a case. Some examples are: e-courts, virtual courts, etc. According to National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), 3.81 crores cases are pending in various district and taluka courts across India. More than one lakh cases are pending for over 30 years. In district courts, backlog of cases saw a sharp increase of 18.2% between December 31, 2019 and December31, 2020. In 25 High Courts, pendency increased by 20.4% in 2019-20 and 5,29% in 2018-19. In the Apex Court, pendency rose 10.35% from 60,469 cases on March 1, 2020 to 66,727 on March 1, 2021. This increase is the highest since 2013. Because of pandemic the situation is getting worse to worst. At this point of time the challenge in front of us to how to reduce these pending cases and to how to tackle with the situation. Possible solution of these questions can be to increase the number of judges. But still it is not a permanent solution. So, the other alternative can be through passing a constitutional amendment act on the increasing the number of judges. But it only seems that it is an easy task.

In reality it requires lots of strength and stamina to place all the political parties, opposition on the same platform and aspect from them a collaborative decision in this context. On March 25, 2021, a SC bench of former CJI SA bobde, Justice Sanjay Kaul and Justice Surya Kant sought responses from HC’s on framing standard operating procedures to recall retired HC judges under Art. 224A of the Constitution of India to tackle the huge pendency in HC’s. The retired judges would be giving a specific tenure to adjudicate old cases as they would be registered as the junior most in the hierarchy of the HC, it would not cause any heart burn among serving judges. The filing of vacancies could lead to speedy disposal of cases. No judges have been appointed to the court since Sept, 2019. The 540 days gap between appointments to the court is the largest in the last decade. On March 27, 2021 apex court judge Justice N V Ramana (CJI) stressed the need for modernization of Judicial Infrastructure and called for setting up of a National Judicial Infrastructure Corporation for this. The e-courts project envisioned and implemented by the e-committee of the SC along with the Department of Justice and National Information Centre is on a mission mode project of the government. The project set on example of a successful e-governance project, reaping rich dividends to litigants and citizens by recording 2,32,42,83,034 (as on Dec. 14, 2020) crore e-transactions with the average e-transactions for 343 days in 2020 being 67.06 lakhs daily. In 2014, former CJI R M Lodha proposed to make Indian judiciary work throughout the year in order to reduce pendency of cases. However, as per this proposal, there was not going to be any increase in the no. of working days on hours of any of the judges and it only that different judges

would be going on vacation during different periods of the years as per their choice. But the BCI rejected this proposal mainly because it would have inconvenienced the advocates who would have to work throughout the year. As a permanent solution of it SUPACE is introduced. SUPACE is powered by AI. SUPACE- SC Portal for Assistance in Court’s Efficiency. Through, this portal, the SC intends to leverage machine learning to deal with the vast amounts of data received at the time of filing of cases. It has been described as a ‘perfect blend of human intelligence and machine learning’ which works as a hybrid between the intelligence of man and the machine. Justice L Nageshwara Rao current chairman of the SC’s AI Committee. Former CJI SA Bobde was the fist ever chairman of the AI committee. Former CJI SA Bobde first spoke of the use of AI to assist the SC soon after he took oath as the CJ in 2019. In his speech on Law Day in 2019, President Ram Nath Kovind had emphasized the need for court judgements to reach the common man even in vernacular languages. AI can easily translate the judgements into a vernacular language. The apex court is burdened with the pendency and the bulky volumes of records being filed. AI will help to take out the important facts and the issues that the parties have raised. Which is expected to be initially used on an experimental basis by the judges of Bombay and Delhi HC who deal with criminal matters. “Additionally, the use of AI in Motor Accidents Claim Tribunals is being explored and a special sub-committee has been framed for this”. Former CJI SA Bobde clarified that the SC will stop using AI after it has given all the information and analyzed the examples.

“We are not going to let AI spill over to decision making. The crucial difference being that any knowledge the human being needs to know, whether in fact or law, can be analyzed and can be reached to the judge for his decision making. It fully retains the autonomy and the discretion of the judge in deciding the case, though at a much, much faster pace because of the readiness with which the information made available by the AI. In my opinion judiciary first of all use it in a docket management. Thereafter, it could graduate to the next level. Which is using it for delivery verdict. What this technology perhaps spoke to do is to bring about some kind of standardization. And how it is going to do- by data management, by bringing before the court on similar facts, with precedents that previous judges and court has already passed. It is a kind of revolution we saw in our legal research. Initially people spent hours and hours in the library. Thereafter, different search engines were introduced for research purpose and now we have AI search engines. Ease of justice if that is achieved and we are head towards that lead to ease of living. Ease of justice and ease of living is directly related to also to ease of doing business. If ease of doing business is improved, it attracts foreign investment. There is a complete chain you are going to have effective court or justice delivery system. The reason behind saying this is-World Bank had recently praised India for National Judicial Data Grid which is managing the entire Judicial data grid across the country. In 2017, former CJI JS Kehar also said that the SC is going to be a paperless court. Generation gap is also an issue basically. Because the old judges they still feel comfortable in traditional way of doing the work. They face difficulties while setting compatibility with latest technology. I think better placement of AI technology can be at pre litigation stage/ hearings for example there are exchange of documents, e-mails, etc. I don’t understand why the court’s time to be wasted on such work. The court is there for delivery of justice not for managing our cases for them. So, all such things can be done through on automated system. That system will automatically generate somethings which shows a certain kind of acceptance. And thereafter matter will be straight forwarded for the hearing. It is a kind of pre trial documentation which does not require any court intervention.

OTHER INDUSTRIES WHERE AI TECHNOLOGY IS IN USE AND AFTERMATH RESULTS Here, I am going to put an example of aviation industry. Wright brothers invented aircraft in the beginning of 20th century. Thereafter use of electronic devices started in 1940s.Thereafter, many modifications, modernization took place in an aircraft. New technologies like auto pilot mode also introduced. I would also like to add one thing that people learn from their mistakes. And as a preventive measure they inculcate or install certain devices which ultimately avoids the incidents in future. There is also a famous saying “Prevention is better than cure”. There are many cases of air crash which happened because of the pilot error. One of the pilot errors is- Failure to use a checklist. Lots of pilots get into the mindset that flying is like riding a bike something you can do easily out of memory. While it’s true that 99% of the time, you’ll remember to do everything required of the checklist, it’s that remaining 1% of the time when you forget to do something that will bite. You can make sure you complete everything you need to all the time if you consistently use a checklist. Sure, you can do cockpit flows or whatever other technique you like but backup your actions with a checklist. And don’t justify blindly read it. Because of ignoring the checklist many air crashes took place in early 90’s. Checklist system was not upgraded. But, to avoid the air crash because of pilot error many devices like- Traffic avoidance collision system, Satellite related

services, SONAR’s, CVR, CDR, Electronic checklists, etc. are installed which basically works on artificial intelligence system. When both the pilots are present in the cockpit and checking and monitoring all the devices in an aircraft, they usually check it through the help of electronic checklist and if the pilots miss any of the device to check, then in such case the AI system which kept intact with the electronic checklist will automatically shows that missing device and also instruct pilots to check it, only then they may proceed. While cursing on high altitudes the anti-collision device through AI system shows caution to the pilots and instructs to prevent the aircraft from air crash. Because of installing these devices, the aircrafts are more secured nowadays. And these devices speed up the on-ground procedures and it also help a lot in quick flight operation and because of the rate of one-time performance of aircraft is also increased in last 2 decades.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: STEP TOWARDS SPEEDYTRIAL Speedy trial is an essential feature of a fair trial. Speedy trial is equally important for victim and accused. Right to a speedy trial was initially mentioned in that landmark document of English law, Magna carta. It was also stated that under the trial prisoners have been in jail for longer than the prescribed time, if convicted, their detention in jail is totally unjustified and it is the violation of fundamental rights under article 21. Mali math committee also recommended that the system of plea bargaining should be introduced in Indian Criminal Justice system to facilitate the speedy disposal of criminal cases and to reduce the burden of the courts. Nowadays, law making bodies are very concern about the stated subject matter. So, whatever laws they are making, they also state that this particular matter must be disposed within a year or something like that. Which ensures automated speedy trial procedure because the law is designed in such a way.

LEGAL PROVISIONS IN CONTEXT OF SPEEDY PROCESS · Sec. 157(1) of Cr PC, 1973 This section imposes a duty upon the police officer, who on receiving information of commission of an offence, has to immediately send a report of the same to the magistrate and to proceed to the spot to investigation. · Sec. 173(1) of Cr PC, 1973 This section provides a mandatory provision to complete all the investigations given under the chapter XII of the Cr PC without unnecessary delay. · Sec. 260 to 265 of Cr PC, 1973 It provides a special right to magistrate to summarily dispose off the matter in case of petty offences. (In monetary terms when the amount is less than rupees 1000 it is known as petty offence.)

CASE LAWS WHICHDEPICTS THE MEANING OF SEPEEDY TRIAL (1) Hussainara Khatoon v. Home Secretary, State of Bihar (1979) In this case the Hon’ble SC held that the “Right to speedy trial” is a fundamental right and it is an integral part of the Art. 21 of the constitution of India. (2) State of Maharashtra v. Champalal Punjaji (1981) In this case the court observed that while deciding the question of whether there has been a denial of the right to a speedy trial, the court is entitled to take into consideration whether the delay was unintentional, caused by overcrowding of the court’s docket or under staffing of the prosecutor’s

and whether the accused contributed a fair part the time taken. There are many reasons which can be responsible for the delay in the trial. (3) Sheela Borsa v. UOI (1986) In this case, the apex court stated that if an accused is not tried speedily and his case remains pending before the magistrate or the session court for an unreasonable length of time, it is clear that his fundamental right to speedy trial would be violated unless there is some interim order passed by the superior court or deliberate delay on the part of the accused. The consequence of such a delay would be that the prosecution would be liable to be quashed. (4) Abdul Rehman Antuleg v. R S Nayak (1992) In this case, the Hon’ble SC held that Right to a speedy trial under Art.21is available at all stages namely the stage of investigation, inquiry, trial, appeal, revision and retrial. The nature of offence and the circumstances may be such that quashing of proceedings may not be in the interest of justice. In such a case it may make an order that the trial may be concluded within a fixed time and reduce the sentence. (5) P. Ramchandra Rao v. State of Karnataka In this case the Hon’ble SC laid down some of the important factors from which we can identify whether an accused has been deprived of his right to speedy trial. They are- Ø Length of delay, Ø The justification for the delay, Ø The accused ascertain of his right to speedy trial and Ø Prejudice caused to the accused by such delay.

CONCLUSION

AI is built to work with human and make our test easier. However, with the maturation of technology, we can only wait and watch what the future of AI hold for us. AI is a boon that can help optimize any job this means that as always, it’s not AI Vs. Human rather it is a combination of Human and AI Vs the actual problem statement. I would like to conclude it with, AI is very important for the judicial process and also for the simplifying the procedure and for removing unnecessary frills. I think that courts will definitely adopt this new technology. And I am sure that the aftermath result of this technology will be more on the positive side.

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