No more fat case files: SC vows to go paperless in 7 months

The Supreme Court will go "paperless" within six to seven months, Chief Justice of India J S Khehar said on Thursday.

The observation on the issue of digitisation of the top court was made when senior advocate Indira Jaising, who has filed a Public Interest Litigation seeking uniform guidelines on designating lawyers as senior, sought expeditious disposal of her plea by a larger bench.

"Within six to seven months you will not file any paper. We will electronically pick up trial court and high court records and there will be no need of case records being filed afresh in SC," the bench comprising the CJI and Justices D Y Chandrachud and S K Kaul said.

Chief Justice Khehar said the court will soon dispense with the need for filing voluminous documents and paperbooks as it is in the process of digitising the entire court records across the country. He said the apex court will collect all records electronically from the lower courts and the high courts so that there would be no need to file hard copies.

Meanwhile, the court has set up a three-judge bench to hear petitions seeking framing of uniform guidelines for designating lawyers as senior by the apex court and the high courts across the country.