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India's first e-court was Sunday opened at High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad, which is the common high court for the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Inaugurating the e-court, Supreme Court judge Justice Madan B. Lokur said Telangana and Andhra Pradesh were first two states in the country to be chosen for Integrated Criminal Justice System (ICJS) project. While noting that the two states made lot of progress in technology, he said it was one of the reasons for the decision to launch the ICJS, a "system which is going to integrate police stations with the courts, with jails, with the prosecution and with the forensic science laboratories".

Justice Lokur, who heads the e-Committee of the Supreme Court, said modalities of the system will be worked out at a meeting scheduled on July 28, and he was impressed with the e-court at Hyderabad High Court. "It is not only the e-court in the sense it is fully computerised but it also a paperless court. We spent few minutes understanding the system and I tried my hand at using the technology. It's extremely user friendly.

I will encourage all judges to try it," he said "During this coming week I am going to try and introduce this in Supreme Court as well. If it happens in the Supreme Court, you (Telangana and Andhra Pradesh high court) can take all credit for it," he said. Stating that technology today is much better, he exuded confidence that all judges will be able to use it easily. He hoped that there will be more e-courts in near future.

Justice Lokur said a huge amount of progress has been made in this high court over couple of years due to the keen interest taken by the chief justice. "Things dramatically changed over last 3 or 4 years. The team effort led to this change. The e-committee trying to supplement this team effort," he added.

He said the purpose of e-courts was to ensure speedy justice for the litigants. He stressed the need to appoint staff for paperless courts and advised judges to focus on online data entry. High court incharge Chief Justice Dilip B. Bhosale, judges of the high court and senior officials were present.

IANS