In a country where the backlog of criminal appeals has grown into a mountain—over 7.24 lakh and climbing—the Supreme Court has sounded a wake-up call to the nation’s High Courts: it’s time to leave paper trails behind and let machines help carry the load.
The apex court urged all High Courts to embrace technology with urgency—digitise lower court records, build AI-backed tools, and appoint dedicated Registrars to oversee case management. This isn’t just a friendly suggestion; it’s a blueprint to keep the criminal justice system from choking on its own paperwork.
One key recommendation? As soon as a High Court admits a criminal appeal, the entire case record from the lower court should be transmitted electronically—no more waiting for dusty files to crawl through corridors. The Court floated the idea of uniform rules to enforce this digital transmission automatically.
But the Court didn’t stop there. It advised High Courts to establish “case management sections,” staffed by senior judicial registrars. These officials would track the flow of appeals, prioritize cases where the accused is in jail, and ensure cases don’t get lost in procedural black holes.
Behind all of this is one uncomfortable truth: the sheer scale of criminal appeals pending before High Courts threatens to overwhelm the justice system. And the old ways—manual processes, paper files, scattered timelines—are simply no match for the volume.
This moment, as framed by the Supreme Court, is not just about clearing a docket. It’s about reimagining how justice moves, or fails to, when the machinery hasn’t been oiled in decades.
The future, according to the bench, lies in smart systems, not overburdened clerks. And if the courts act fast, they just might get ahead of the tide.
