Covid-19 and the associated lockdown has brought the Courts across the globe into a partially functional position. It has put a lot of strain on an already burdened case processing infrastructure, handling a considerable amount of pending cases. Self-service, E-filing and associated processes can help overcome the overload on the case processing system.
Courts are burdened with quite a number of pending cases as new cases are being filed every day. Court proceedings, being document-intensive, consistently generate a large number of documents from both old and new cases, making it quite tedious for court administrators to manage them. This puts pressure on the time of Court staff, making it imperative for the Court to increase the staff strength, which is not practical all the time. Manual litigation registration would involve document filings, verifications and resubmissions of documents related to the litigations filed in the Court. As new litigations are made, along with the old ones, it is no wonder that the documents are piled up for verifications and resubmissions. This will increase the time for processing of documents substantially, taking into account all the documents of the pending cases and new ones, resulting in considerable delay in litigation processes and closure.
Moreover, in a manual case processing setting, storage and accessing of case specific files or documents is quite cumbersome. The stockpiling of documents in dusty, ordinary rooms results in the deterioration of the documents being stored. There is also a possibility of document tampering and even theft.
E-filing helps in automating the process of self-service filing of documents, both off the web and mobile. It allows court staff to verify the documents quickly as they are filed and send notifications directly to the parties for resubmission of documents, if needed. Any document that has been filed during the progress of the litigation can be submitted to the court systems directly by any case party and responses can be shared with the associated parties immediately. This reduces the case processing time considerably, resulting in increased efficiency of Court administration and helping cost savings related to case filing.
E-filing, with an online collaboration infrastructure for virtual appearance and hearings, along with an open and efficient Case Management System can automate the Litigation Process within a court to deliver justice in time.
