Supreme Court’s War Room: Chief Justice of India’s parting gift to nation

With just six working days left before incumbent Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud’s retires on November 10, India Today TV on Thursday visited the Supreme Court War Room, where the entire Information Technology team, key to the top court’s day-to-day functioning, operates from.
India Today TV visited the War Room, which was set up under the supervision of CJI DY Chandrachud and boasts state-of-the-art technology at its disposal.
With a video wall on one side and working stations on the other for a battery of officials who operate and monitor the day-to-day functioning of the Supreme Court, the day starts at 8 am.
Explaining the challenges, Hargurvarinder Singh Jaggi, Registrar, Technology said, “In this War Room, we keep a very close eye on what’s going on inside all 17 courts. We have to be very cautious that the live-streaming of the Constitution bench goes well, but the real challenge is when we have some public interest cases in court and the video conferencing facility has a limited capacity. So far we have managed things well”.
On the question of the beta version being tested on the live-streaming of other courts, Jaggi explained, “It’s in a testing phase and we will continue improving on various aspects as and when we receive suggestions”.
The War Room is the brainchild of CJI Chandrachud and has all the data incorporated from the National Judicial Data Grid, which shows real-time pendency across the country.
The top court’s IT team, comprising Shah Nawaj, Tejinder Singh, Pavan Prathapa, explained with the help of a video presentation as to how they monitor cases, starting from the filing till the disposal stage.
Ashish J Shiradhonkar, Registrar (OSD), Technology Innovation Planning and the man behind the e-court project in India, also explained the nuances of how the data is collated and put on the court’s official website.
The War Room also has a tool to monitor how many people enter the court premises on a given day and when the footfall breaches the 10,000-mark, the team informs Mahesh T Patankar, Registrar, Courts & Building, so that he can take the necessary steps in time.
The War Room also has real-time data of how the files in the registry move and which officer has how many pending case files with them. The virtual justice clock also operates from the same War Room.