The new system has been introduced on a pilot basis in two courts

The electronic tablet mounted on the table before judges hearing a case may hold the key to rendering of the entire Madras High Court paperless one day.

The new system was introduced on a pilot basis in two courts, say High Court judges. The tablet may help the presiding judge avoid the trouble of going through voluminous paper bundles.

Presently, court hall no-4, where Justices Chitra Venkataraman and T.S.Sivagnanam are hearing tax appeal cases and court hall no 37 where Justice V.Ramasubramanian hears company matters and arbitration cases, are in process of becoming paperless. In the both these court halls, Wacom tablets, produced by the Japanese company Wacom Limited, have been installed temporarily for testing the efficacy of its functioning.

The judges were seen browsing the huge screen mounted on their table, while the advocates were arguing the case with the help of a laptop, or ipad. Only a few advocates stick to the customary style of hardcopies of their case bundle.

The newly introduced tablet contains a screen, which has the facility of being operated, either through a stylus or touch mode. If the advocates can present the entire set of papers in a pen-drive, the files will be transported on to the desktop and opened and closed within seconds.

Even while reading the files that are open on the screen, the judges can take notes using the stylus by opening the notepad in a second window of the tablet by creating a partition of the screen. Any portion of a document contained in a folder, which are of importance, can be copied and transferred to the notepad in which notes are jotted down by the judge.

Responding to the development, Naveen Kumar Murthi, a young advocate said, “It was a really delightful sight to see that the court is getting high tech, shunning the conventional paper book system. This will really pave the way for saving a lot of time and will make things much simpler for lawyers who have got tech-savvy over the years.”

“The new system introduced in courts dealing with company and tax matters is getting the co-operation of bar members. Already, members of the Revenue Bar Association started using soft copies of the case. In the longer run, it will reduce the huge amount of paper work and make the judges more tech-savvy so that they keep pace with Gen-next,” said P. H. Arvindh Pandian, Additional Advocate General.