Many cases are being reported in court every day. According to a report, nearly 4 million criminal cases under the IPC were reported in 2020. The National Judicial Data Grid states that India's 10898764 civil cases and 31110008 criminal cases are currently pending. COVID-19 has brought about several changes. During the period, the number of cases reported increased. There was also a considerable increase in pending cases post-pandemic due to lower disposal rates. 

As per the PRS legislative research, the pendency rates are higher in Madras, Rajasthan Punjab and Haryana compared to the high courts of Kolkata and Patna. Chief Justice of India N.V Ramana said that the vacancies in the court fuel the tedious growth of pending cases. More than 400 judicial positions are vacant in the court and almost 5000 vacancies in the lower court.  

The problems in the Indian Legal system cannot be limited to pending cases. “In India, the case documents are long – often they can go up to hundreds of pages – and unlike in other countries, they are not written in a very organized way.” IIT KGP’s Dr. Saptarshi Ghosh stated in a conversation with INDIAai. 

The real question is, can AI be used to find practical solution for these problems? 

AI applications in the Indian Legal System 

In providing solutions to overcome the issues in the Indian Legal system, IIT Kharagpur is one of the institutions that stand on the frontline. The researchers at the organizations have evolved an AI aided method to read legal judgements, which can not only tell which laws are getting violated but also, in the process, help minimize legal costs. On the other hand, the legal practitioners don’t want to read the whole case document. Therefore, the AI-based automated reading of case documents helps understand the parts of relevance and interest to them related to facts and judgment. Dr. Ghosh’s team is also working on a project on the automatic summarization of legal documents. 

In the parliamentary session, Law Minister Kiren Rijiju stated that while implementing phase two of the eCourts projects, under operation since 2015, a need was felt to adopt new AI and ML technologies to increase the efficiency of the Indian Judiciary.  

In addition, several other AI-related developments in the Indian judicial systems include: 

• Supreme Court Vidhik Anuvaad Software for translating English legal documents and orders into nine other dialect languages.  
• The supreme court’s multilingual mobile application provides the right to read case laws, regular guidelines, decisions, display board and other information with a click. 
• The e-court or virtual courts are a significant development that will save citizen's time, energy, and money.  
• NITI Aayog has also released a ‘National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence' which considered the importance of AI in different sectors. 

Benefits of using AI 

Even though the expansion of AI in the Indian legal system is restrained due to several factors, it is expected to have greater scope. The law professionals will immensely benefit from the use of AI as it: 

• Provides due diligence 
• Aids in research  
• Predict the potential of pending cases 
• Analyses legal documents  
• Aids in automated billing

In the current scenario, India's legal profession is somewhat manual and traditional. The senior advocates are a little hesitant about the concepts of AI. Unwanted fear of being replaced by AI also exists. However, there are hints of change emerging from different corners. The improvement of technology in the law field can significantly change how our lawyers function. 

Sources:

The Hindu

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