Days of endless waiting to get a hard copy of a Supreme Court order is over. Now, all it takes for the court to do is a soft tap of the ‘send’ button and, may be, a couple of blinks of the eye after with ‘FASTER’, an abbreviation of ‘Fast and Secured Transmission of Electronic Records’, a digital platform formally launched by Chief Justice of India (CJI) N.V. Ramana on Thursday.
The platform would be used by the court officials to instantly to send e-copies of the orders through a secured electronic communication channel to intended parties.
These orders may vary from stay of execution of a person to freeze on the demolition of a slum to bail orders for undertrial prisoners.
The CJI said FASTER would aid the cause of quick and effortless justice.
Agra jail inmates case
The idea stemmed from a case reported in The Hindu in July last about several prisoners in the Agra Jail forced to remain behind bars for three days after the court granted them bail because the hard copies of the order had not reached the prison officials.
Shocked by the brazen violation of the fundamental rights of personal liberty, life and dignity of the prisoners, the CJI had suo motu taken cognisance of the issue of delay in delivery of court orders and asked whether the court was “still looking at the skies for pigeons to deliver our orders in this era of modern technology?”
The timely delivery of the court’s orders to the authorities would also prevent unnecessary arrests and custody of people who have already been granted anticipatory bail.
