Cuttack, Aug 7: Warrant Management System and PIL Portal were inaugurated in virtual mode by Chief Justice, High Court of Orissa Dr. S Mauralidhar in the presence of Justice Subhasis Talapatra, Chief Justice-Designate and Chairperson, Artificial Intelligence and Information Technology Committee of the High Court, Justice Biswanath Rath, Chairperson, State Court Management System Committee and the Judges of the High Court of Orissa on August 7.
In the last two and half years, a series of e-Initiatives were implemented by the High Court of Orissa including e-filing, e-payment of court fees, digitization, hybrid hearing, paperless courts, e-libraries, live streaming of court proceedings, and so on. Warrant Management System and PIL Portal are the latest additions to the series.
Warrant Management System is a portal of the High Court of Orissa, developed in coordination with the State Crime Records Bureau, (SCRB) Odisha to ensure expeditious transmission and tracking of warrants. The portal has the facility of issuing warrants to the police, tracking the status of execution of the warrants, and acknowledgment of warrant execution. Various types of warrants such as non-bailable warrants, bailable warrants, Distress warrants, and Recommitment can be issued through this portal. While issuing warrants, the details of the warranty existing in the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) can be automatically fetched to avoid erroneous data entry and reduce time. The warrants issued by the Courts will be notified on the dashboard of the local CCTNS module instantly so that the concerned Police Officer can take immediate steps for execution of the same.
Details of the executed warrants can be maintained in the portal for effective tracking and monitoring of the same by the Courts and the Police. Other features such as Modification of warrantee address with history log, Recall of warrants, Re-generation of warrants, and Viewing of warrants, etc. are also available for the Courts.
Warrant Management System was first made functional for the Cuttack district and now it has been made functional for 7 districts namely, Angul, Balasore, Ganjam, Khurda, Koraput, Sambalpur, and Rourkela in the district of Sundargarh. In the next phase, it would be made functional in other districts.
PIL Portal is a tool through which the public can know about the important Public Interest Litigations (PIL) in the High Court, its relevant orders, reports. which will also help the researchers and students.
Speaking in the inaugural function Dr. S. Muralidhar expressed concern over pendency of huge number of unexecuted warrants in the police stations across the state and said it is not in the interest of rule of law if the executing arms of the court are unable to submit compliance report in respect of the warrants forwarded to them. He added, the role of executing arms is crucial to ensure rule of law. The Chief Justice informed that as many as 61,000 non-bailable warrants, 57000 bailable warrants, 3700 distress warrants and about 600 recommitment warrants are now pending for execution by the police stations, and hopefully, the Warrant Management System will help reduce these numbers.
Speaking on the PIL Portal the Chief Justice said very often the lawyers filing PILs are not able to know that the same issue has already been pending before the court in an earlier filed PIL which leads to a multiplicity of litigations. He said the lawyers bringing petitions before the court in matters of public interest should be more responsible and ensure that the issue is not already pending before the court. The Chief Justice said the PIL Portal will help the citizens and the lawyers know the status of various PILs and the relevant orders and it also gives links to the live-streaming hearings of PIL cases and reports of expert committees appointed by the court. He expressed hope that both the Warrant Management System and the PIL Portal will go a long way in serving the cause of justice.
