Delhi HC Gets Its First Pilot Hybrid Court Room With 'Speech To Text' Facility

The Delhi High Court has launched a 'Pilot Hybrid Court' featuring a 'Speech to Text Facility' powered by AI. This technology assists judges in real-time evidence recording.

Acting Chief Justice Manmohan inaugurated the first Pilot Hybrid Court at Delhi High Court (Image: X)

Source : ANI

The Delhi High Court on Saturday witnessed a significant technological advancement with the unveiling of its first 'Pilot Hybrid Court' equipped with a 'Speech to Text Facility'. The artificial intelligence (AI) equipped system will help judges record evidence during live proceedings and access e-filed cases.

Acting Chief Justice Manmohan inaugurated the first Pilot Hybrid Court at Delhi High Court on Saturday. Justice Manmohan also unveiled another AI-equipped courtroom at Tis Hazari Court on Friday, where he also launched a digital court app.

#WATCH | Delhi High Court gets its first Pilot Hybrid Court room with 'speech to text' facility. pic.twitter.com/NJYUvkImyn

— ANI (@ANI) July 20, 2024

The speech-to-text facility for recording evidence is equipped with advanced technologies like an 'automatic speech recognition' system and 'large language models' to efficiently convert spoken words into written text visible on the screens. It will save time and enhance the working capacity of judges and court staff, particularly stenographers.

Speaking about the system at Tis Hazari on Friday, Justice Manmohan said that technology has to be harnessed to improve the legal system.

"We have to use and harness technology to improve the legal system to ensure that the people who are accused of crimes are brought to book and the delays have to be cut short… the only way to ensure that the system works properly is to ensure that good technology is brought into the system," Justice Manmohan was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

He said that the speech-to-text facility for evidence recording was a "very powerful tool", having the potential of becoming a "game-changer".

"Today when I sit in the court and decide matters, one of the things which strikes me when I look at the big picture is that today technology is being used to circumvent the laws to break the laws to promote infringement...The only way we can deal with violations and bring people in conformity with the law is again to use technology in the right way," Justice Manmohan said.

He further noted that the system would also solve the problem of the shortage of stenographers. "The other thing is that as a chief justice, the first and the biggest problem that I face is all judges are requesting a large number of stenographers and there is not enough pool available," Justice Manmohan said.

"I think this will solve the problem to a large extent because once speech-to-text facility is available, especially with regard to the recording of evidence by the joint registrars and by the district judiciary, it will ensure that quite a big pool of stenographers becomes available," he added.

Justice Manmohan called the 'Pilot Hybrid Court' an example of the right application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology.  "We are trying to promote paperless courts; everyone is making an effort, and the IT committee headed by Justice Rajiv Shakder is doing a great job. We require a lot more finances. Naturally, the state has its own priorities. So there is a bit of a sort of a tussle or there is a bit of argument over it and we have to resolve it," he said.

"But we are ensuring that we are able to develop hybrid court facilities in all the 691 district courtrooms and a budget of about Rs 387 crore is on the anvil, and we are sure that we will get it soon enough and the 14 pilot court projects are in the pipeline which are to be implemented straight away," he added.