CJI Chandrachud hails Rs 7,000 crore proposed budgetary allocation to e-courts project
New Delhi (PTI): The proposed allocation of Rs 7,000 crore in the 2023-24 budget for phase three of the eCourts Project will enhance judicial institutions and efficiency while ensuring courts reach every citizen, Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud said Saturday.
Addressing the 73rd anniversary of the establishment of the Supreme Court, he said that during the COVID-19 pandemic period, the top court adopted video conferencing of court proceedings to reach out to the people.
"In the recent budget, the Government of India has introduced a provision of Rs 7,000 crore for phase-3 of the e-courts project. This will help enhance the accessibility of judicial institutions and the efficiency of judicial systems in India. Such endeavour will ensure the court reaches every citizen of India," Justice Chandrachud said.
Between March 23, 2020, and October 30, 2022, the apex court heard 3.37 lakh cases through video conferencing, he said.
"We updated our video conferencing infrastructure at meta scale. We are continuing to use technological infrastructure for a hybrid mode of hearing that allows parties from any part of the country to join the court proceedings," CJI Chandrachud said.
The 73rd anniversary event was graced by Chief Justice of Singapore Justice Sundaresh Menon, who spoke on the topic 'Role of judiciary in a changing world'.
The Supreme Court came into existence on 28 January 1950, two days after India became a republic on 26 January. PTI PKS
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2019 mud attack on engineer: Maharashtra court sentences BJP minister Nitesh Rane to one-month jail
Mumbai (PTI): A court in Sindhudurg on Monday convicted Maharashtra minister Nitesh Rane in a 2019 case of pouring mud on an NHAI engineer when he was in opposition, and sentenced him to one-month imprisonment, noting that lawmakers are not supposed to take the law into their hands.
Later, the court suspended Rane's sentence, allowing him time to appeal before a higher court, while acquitting 29 other accused in the case.
"Even though Rane's intention was to raise a voice against the poor quality of work and inconvenience faced by the people, he was not supposed to humiliate or insult a public servant in public," additional sessions court judge V S Deshmukh stated.
"If such incidents continue to occur, public servants would not be able to discharge their duties with dignity," the judge noted.
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Calling the act "abuse of power", the court held that "it is the demand of time to curb such tendency".
Rane, a son of former Union minister Narayan Rane, was among 30 people charged under various offences, including rioting, assault to deter a public servant, and criminal conspiracy. He was in Congress when the incident occurred.
All the accused, including Nitesh Rane, were acquitted of these offences, as the court found insufficient evidence to support most of these claims.
However, the court found Nitesh Rane guilty of an offence under section 504 (intentional insult meant to provoke a breach of public peace) and sentenced him to one month's jail.
Rane, then a Congress MLA, had called the Sub-Divisional Engineer of the National Highway Authority, Prakash Shedekar, to a bridge over the Gad river in Kankavli on July 4, 2019, for inspecting the work to widen the Mumbai-Goa Highway.
According to the prosecution, Nitesh Rane and his followers, frustrated by the poor quality of the roadwork and waterlogging, confronted the engineer. They poured muddy water on Shedekar and forced him to walk through slush in public.
The court, after perusing the evidence on record, noted that the informant (victim) was holding a high post in the National Highway Authority.
"Despite that, he was made to walk through the muddy water in public. It would have certainly humiliated and insulted him," the court remarked.
The judge held that Rane compelling Shedekar to walk through the muddy water "was nothing but an intentional insult to the informant," and provocation which will cause him to break the public peace.
