India: Role of Artificial Intelligence in Justice Delivery System

 

At presently Indian Judicial system is facing a major problem and that is the huge backlog of the pending cases at all levels of Courts in judicial hierarchy, from Taluka Courts to Hon’ble Supreme Court of India. As of late it has been debated that if the early action is not taken, the Judicial system would collapse and would be practical meaningless, and not only that, but the worse thing would be is that the common men will loose the faith in the judicial system. Timely justice is necessary. In one of its judgement, the Hon’ble Supreme Court has held that Justice delayed is justice denied.

Apart from common man approaching the Courts, the investors, particularly foreign investors have a great concern regarding the effectiveness of judicial system. Whenever any investor thinks of investing in India, his first concern is, that in case of dispute, no timely justice or dispute resolution would be there. This may change the mind of investor and he might back out from investing.

No doubt our country has most caliber judges, sincere and hand working, but due to population explosion and consequential increase in disputes, leads to delay in justice delivery system.

India has a huge population of approximately 133 crores and the contemporary socio-economic advancement has treaded a path to increase the consciousness of statutory rights and remedies available to the common people to approach the courts for justice. The tremendous burden of population has been constantly felt by the Indian Judiciary resulting into enormous number of pending cases in the courts of law. The increasing number of pending cases in Indian courts has caused serious concerns for each wing of the country.

Supreme Court of India published a report titled “Subordinate Judiciary-Access to Justice 2016” asserts capacity constraints are the main reasons for high level of pendency. The report explains the reasons and state that the mounting pendency of cases in subordinate courts is because the subordinate judiciary has been working under a deficiency of courtrooms, judicial officers and one cogent reason is that modernization and computerization have not reached all courts. The outcome then, is delayed and ineffective justice delivery which is not very useful for any society.

At presently, one field that has been recently caught eye on is newfound field of Artificial Intelligence to cope up with this conundrum.

The Hon’ble Chief Justice of India, Justice S.A. Bobde, recently proposed to bring in the system of artificial intelligence (AI) which would ease and support the administration of justice in India. However, the idea is to provide aid to the justice delivery system and not to ever substitute the judges. This step is being seen as a revolutionary change in the judicial system. The CJI was addressing the Constitution Day function organized by the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) on 26th November 2019 and in his speech, he has said.– “We propose to introduce, if possible, a system of artificial intelligence. There are many things which we need to look at before we introduce ourselves. We do not want to give the impression that this is ever going to substitute the judges.”

According to the CJI, machines cannot replace humans specifically the knowledge and wisdom of judges. The deployment of the AI system will help reduce pendency and expedite judicial adjunction.

His Excellency, The President of India Shri Ram Nath Kovind was also present at the event. He launched the Supreme Court mobile application. Justice Bodbe, while talking about the application, asserted that an artificial intelligence fuelled law translation system will facilitate the quality translation and will further help in improving the efficiency of the Indian Judicial System. Reportedly, the app that was released will translate Supreme Court judgments in more than 9 regional languages. We could say that this is the first step in application of AI in Indian Judicial System.

This idea of Artificial Intelligence has been brought up for consideration to restore the effectiveness and efficiency of Indian Justice Delivery System. With the increasing trends in the world of digitalization, this field of ‘Artificial Intelligence’ may help to reduce the number of pending cases.

The era of automated machines and reliance on more of machines even for the smallest of the tasks is a natural. “Artificial Intelligence” is one remarkable solution in the field of legal industry. In the common parlance, artificial intelligence can be described in contrast to natural intelligence by humans as machinery or robotic system of providing quick and prompt solutions. AI is a rapidly advancing field of computer science. In the mid-1950s, John McCarthy, who has been credited as the father of AI, defined it as “the science and engineering of making intelligent machines” (see sidebar, “A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence”). Conceptually, AI is the ability of a machine to perceive and respond to its environment independently and perform tasks that would typically require human intelligence and decision making processes, but without direct human intervention.

For comprehensive understanding the meaning of Artificial Intelligence, following definitions can be considered:

Artificial intelligence is the ability of a digital computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings. The term is frequently applied to the project of developing systems endowed with the intellectual processes characteristic of humans, such as the ability to reason, discover meaning, generalize, or learn from past experience. --- By Copeland, B.J., Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence as the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages. ---By Oxford Dictionary

An area of computer science that deals with giving machines the ability to seem like they have human intelligence.--- By Merriam Dictionary

Artificial intelligence is a type of computer technology which is concerned with making machines carry out work in an intelligent way, similar to the way a human would.--- By Collins Dictionary

In short, Artificial Intelligence is the ability of a machine to think and act like humans or replicate "cognitive" functions that humans associate with other human minds, such as "learning" and "problem solving".

Artificial intelligence has been a contributor to almost every field including but not limited to healthcare, education, marketing and defence., AI is helping in medical diagnosis, managing health records, designing treatments, managing medication and drug creation

International Perspective

The growth of Artificial Intelligence can be witnessed internationally across the boundaries of nations. The best suited and cost effective AI technologies are being made available for shift and adaption of Artificial Intelligence. The use of AI technologies in different industries has been observed and the legal industry has also not been left untouched. The legal industry in some parts of developed countries like U.S.A and Canada have already deployed AI systems to aid the judges in effective justice delivery, on taking a call on matters like granting of bail and release of offenders on parole.

The use of Artificial Intelligence and its contribution can be tracked on to miscellaneous areas like due diligence in contracts and investments. It has capability of predicting the legal outcome of cases that are being instituted in the courts. With the Artificial Intelligence, one can look for key points from past case laws and aid the lawyers to provide set of precedents to the respective case in hand. The software and tools of Artificial Intelligence can get the documentation of documents in the easiest way possible and it can be also be used in the Intellectual Property Rights, wherein it helps by providing insights into the IP portfolios i.e. search and registration of a trademark, Patent, Copyrights etc.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is capable to muck in with the judges by predicting vital information regarding an ongoing case based on past cases of a similar nature. An analysis of several details of the case like number of accused in a case, date of filing of the charge sheet, number of witnesses examined during evidence stage, witness turning hostile, reasons for adjournments can be made available. For the reasons which can help judges make better strategic decisions.

Likewise, the application of AI can be applied in India, firstly be identifying court tasks which needs to be expedited such as routine matters such as service of processes to complex ones like evaluation of evidence.

Artificial Intelligence will save judicial time of the courts leading to better utilization of public money. It would prevent undue delay in delivery of justice and will ensure timely justice delivery. Artificial Intelligence is expected to rationalise the decision‐making process by summarizing all relevant information in a more efficient way than the human brain is able to do. Artificial Intelligence in the field of justice is the ability of algorithms to reduce discretion. Artificial Intelligence provided by a software program is supposed to be perceived as more reliable, scientific, and legitimate than other sources of information, including one’s emotionality about the case.

Conclusion

Different fields have already witnessed the scope and efficiency of “Artificial Intelligence” such as, assisting doctors in conducting surgeries, transportation in the shape of self-driving cars, marketing by tracking consumer buying patterns, etc. Artificial intelligence (AI) can be a useful tool to acquire skills and deliver efficient results. It has enabled breakthrough in different fields and has potential to give remarkable contribution to the legal industry in justice delivery system. It is no doubt that it will definitely be a blessing to ensure sustainable and speedy justice delivery system. Therefore, use of Artificial Intelligence in decision making in courts is a viable solution for bringing down the pendency of cases in India. Artificial Intelligence in different fields and also its potential use in the courts of law would assist judges and lawyers, who are considered as pivotal pillars in justice delivery system, by shortening the time taken in various tasks at different stages of a trial as also the judges by assisting them in stages of decision making process and thereby can ultimately help in reducing the length of time ordinarily taken in a trial. Saving time would inevitably mean better efficiencies in disposing of cases which would ultimately contribute to the cause of bringing down pendency in the courts of law. When this is done, the noble cause of ensuring effective and sustainable justice to the masses shall be achieved. But in the end, it is stated that no doubt AI would be used as a technique to achieve success in speedy and effective Justice Delivery system, but at the same hand it should be used as a caution and responsibilities should not be delegated to machine.

 

For further information, please contact:

Promila Dhar, Partner

India Law Offices, New Delhi

e: p.dhar@indialawoffices.com

t: + 91 11 24622216

 

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