Will be left out if we don’t use social media: Justice Chandrachud tells judiciary

New Delhi, Aug 01: The judiciary will be left out in the game if it does not shed its inhibition of using modern social media tools, Supreme Court judge, Justice Dhananjay Chandrachud said.

Speaking at the First All India District Legal Services Authorities meet in New Delhi, Justice Chandrachud said, 'we have been very reticent. The Supreme Court has been very reticent. So, the high courts are even more reticent and the district courts, which look up to the high court, are therefore even more reticent on the use of modern means of communication, including Twitter and Telegram."

The judge underlined that the judiciary's resistance to use the means of modern communication has to change as it can only reach out to citizens by using the language of discourse, which is today becoming prevalent in society.

Unless we, as judicial institutions, shake this resistance to adopting the means of communication which is so widespread in society today, we would perhaps have lost the game. And, I believe that we are already in the process of losing the game, unless we shed fear about what is going to happen if we use modern means of communication, Justice Chandrachud also said.

"Yes, of course, some of us will lose their sense of respect of the community... by showing it to the world at large as to how we conduct ourselves when we sit on that dais. But that's also a reminder that we have to change the ways in which we have been functioning," he also added.

"I think we can earn the respect of the community at large, provided we adopt and come on to the platforms which are so prevalent in our society. The judicial institutions cannot be left behind if we have to be the harbingers of change," Justice Chandrachud also said.

We must shift from a system which allows citizens to pursue their cause of justice to a system which seeks out those for whom justice is meant... by seeking out the beneficiaries. The burden then is displaced from the beneficiaries to those who are in charge of various facets of the administration of justice, whether in terms of identification of beneficiaries, creating a sense of awareness or preparing a module for universalising the delivery of justice," the Supreme Court judge added.