From sudhir75 at hotmail.com Tue Jun 11 18:00:24 2002 From: sudhir75 at hotmail.com (Sudhir Krishnaswamy) Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 18:00:24 +0530 Subject: [Commons-law] Studying law and culture Message-ID: Hi everyone, Let me introduce myself before making my first contribution to this list. I'm Sudhir and along with Lawrence and Jeebesh will administer this list. I'm a lawyer by training and am based at the Alternative Law Forum in Bangalore. Have been slow getting started on the list and will quickly make up for that! Start with a short response to the previous two postings on why a interdisciplinary study of law is useful and how we may take that forward. Instead of proceeding from a broad theoretical understanding of how the disciplines may interact and what the benefits of this may be, let me start with a couple of examples of how I think this enquiry may be useful. My previous research effort compared affirmative action policies in India and the US for caste and race groups respectively. While reading the Supreme Courts judgments on the issue it was obvious to me that the judges were informed by 'popular' conceptions of caste and race rather than sociological or historical debates on the issue. This information forms the basis of their legal judgments in these cases. It is important to map out the popular discourses on caste/race and subject these to rigorous analysis as: [a] this will feed into the strategies of legal argumentation that is likely to deliver better results [b] these analyses can inform interventions in the construction of the 'popular'. My second example is from the 'search' for an Indian Jurisprudence. Jurisprudence as it is conventionally defined, in Western Academy, is a philosophical enquiry into law. An attempt to outline an Indian jurisprudence encounters several initial difficulties. First, there is the absence of an active Indian philosophical tradition in mainstream universities and the corresponding lack of textual resources that form a disciplinary corpus. Secondly, there are the epistemological and methodological problems associated with the claim that a jurisprudence is somehow 'Indian' as opposed to say, 'Pakistani' in character. In these circumstances it is useful to adopt the pedagogical devices developed by the sub-discipline called Narrative Jurisprudence. They would advise us to approach the question by looking closely at cultural artifacts - stories, plays, movies that help us inquire into how our culture thinks about law. This approach has two advantages: [a] we are not trapped by the anglo-american philosophical concerns that dominate contemporary jurisprudence [b] they allow us to develop a core set of texts that form the basis of the philosophical inquiry into law. These two examples illustrate how the domain of the legal and the cultural are interwoven and why this interdisciplinary study may be exciting and fruitful. In the first case we recognize that the popular conception which operates in the judges reasoning has a significant impact on the legal reasoning used by the court to reach particular conclusions. In the second example we attempt to develop a conceptual legal vocabulary by starting with cultural artifacts. This porosity between the domains of law and culture and the dual use of methodologies employed to study them promises to contribute to our understanding of law and culture. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20020611/3dea2bb8/attachment.html From zamrooda at sarai.net Mon Jun 24 17:30:17 2002 From: zamrooda at sarai.net (zamrooda) Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 17:30:17 +0530 Subject: [Commons-law] Notes from the court-3 Message-ID: <02062417301702.01671@legal.sarai.kit> . home Causelist JUDIS Daily orders Court websites COURTNIC Indiacode Home Indian Judiciary JUDIS Agreement JUDIS CD manual IT in Judiciary Ministry of Law & Justice FAQ Help Disclaimer NIC   . Cause List A.P. HCBombay HCCalcutta HCGuwahati HCDelhi HCGujarat HCJ & K HCKarnataka HCKerala HCMP HCMadras HCOrissa HCP & H HCPatna HCJaipur (Raj. HC)Jodhpur (Raj. HC)Andaman BenchAurangabad BenchIndore BenchNagpur BenchPanaji Bench________________ . JUDIS Supreme CourtAPDELHIJ&KMADRASORISSA________________ . Court Websites DELHIBOMBAYCALCUTTAKERALAJ&KAP________________ . Daily Orders SCDELHI HC________________ Contact Address Courts Informatics Devision, National Informatics Centre, Ministry Of Information Technology, A- Block, C.G.O. Complex, Lodi Road, New Delhi - 110 003, INDIA.   e-mail : clist at hub.nic.in Fax 011-4364873       IT in Judiciary   MINISTRY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY NATIONAL INFORMATICS CENTRE COURTS INFORMATICS DIVISION ****** Status of Information Technology in Indian Courts Ever since NIC took up computerization in Supreme Court in 1990, many applications have been computerized which have impact on masses i.e. litigants. Following are some of the applications which have been successfully implemented at Supreme Court and 18 High Courts and these applications have either direct or indirect impact on the masses . Supreme Court of India List of Business Information System (LOBIS): It is about scheduling of cases to be heard by the courts on the following day. It enabled the Registries of Supreme Court and High Courts in eliminating manual process of Cause List generation thus any manipulation by vested interests. These databases contain details of fresh cases, disposed and pending cases. It is the backbone application of every Court. Impact:As Cause Lists are generated automatically by the computer manual intervention has been eliminated resulting in generation of Cause List in time with out any hassleCases are listed strictly in chronological order of date of filing; eliminated irregularitiesAll cases having the same law point(s) to be decided by the courts are bunched/grouped and posted before one bench. This has helped the courts in faster disposal of cases.It has become simpler to recall dismissed cases when review petitions are filed. On the spot reliable and instantaneous statistical reports are generatedIt has helped Registry of Supreme Court in streamlining its day to day activities to achieve one of the main objectives of COURTIS Project Filing Counter Computerization In the Supreme Court of India and all High Courts fresh cases are filed only before the computerized Filing Counters. As the advocates stand in queue for Filing cases before the counters, the data entry Operator enters preliminary details required for Registration such as Party names, advocate details, etc. The computer terminal at the query counter is used to attend to the quarries of the litigants on the spot. The defects, if any, are listed out and handed over to the litigants/advocates for rectification. Time limitation is also checked by the system automatically.   ImpactThe filing process is made easyThe advocates/litigants need not wait for a long time in the queueThe amount collected towards Court fee in a day is automatically calculated thus saving the time of court official's timeQuery counter avoids the litigants go around the sections to find out the Filing status Filing process is orderly Saves time and efforts of advocates and court officials COURTNIC This is about providing Supreme Courts' pending case status information to litigants/advocates on any node of NICNET. COURTNIC answers about two hundred queries of litigants/advocates per day all over the country on the status of their pending cases. It is available on nominal charges. Primarily COURTNIC information is available in all NIC-High Court Computer Cells and in some District Court. It has been in use since 1993. Impact The response to the COURTNIC from the public is over-whelming, as pending cases information is available at his/her District headquarters. It avoids the litigants to come all over to Delhi from their place. The litigants need not find the status of their pending cases on phone as is the usual practice. Probably this facility is first of its kind in the world. JUDIS NIC has brought out Judgement Information System (JUDIS) consisting of complete text of all reported judgement of Supreme Court of India from 1950 to 1998. The Judgements of 1999 onwards are available on Internet. JUDIS-CD is available on a Membership basis for Rs. 6000/-. It is marketed by NICSI. (http://judisi.nic.in)   Supreme Court's pending Cases on IVR Interested litigants and advocates can find out the status of their cases pending in Supreme Court on telephone by making use of Interactive Voice. Response System (IVR) free of charge. For accessing this, the phone nos. are: 011-4362062, 4360112.   Cause Lists on Internet (http://causelists.nic.in) Causelists are scheduling of cases to be heard by the courts on the following day. The Causelists of Supreme Court and many other High Courts are available on NIC Web Servers. As the Supreme Court of India and all the 18 High Courts and their 10 Benches are fully computerised, all these courts generate Daily and Weekly Causelists from the computer servers installed by NIC. The Causelist application is the backbone application of all courts as no court can function with out that day's Causelist. Hence this has become near time critical application in all the Courts. Immediately after generation of the Causelist most of the courts cyclostyle the stencils cut from the printers attached to the servers for generating thousands of copies running into a few lakhs of pages every day. Due to this reason the courts take a lot of time for generation and supply of the Causelists to the advocates at their offices or residences. Usually the advocates receive the cyclostyled copies of a day's Cause List not before 8 PM. Some High Courts send the Causelists data on floppy to the Printers for printing thousands of copies. This process costs each High Courts lakhs of Rupees every year. By making the Causelists available on Internet, no High Court is incurring any expenditure as they are using the already available infrastructure and the Software of NIC. Features It is available on InternetCauselists of all High Courts can be accessed at URL i.e. http://causelists.nic.in Advocates can generate their own Causelist consisting of his/her own casesRetrieval through the name of either petitioner or respondent Court wise list can be generatedJudge wise list can be preparedEntire Causelist can be printed, if requiredCase no. wise access is possible Impact Advocates are able to receive the Cause lists almost immediately after courts hoursAdvocate can generate their own casuists which will contain only their cases, thus avoiding them to go through hundreds of pages to locate their casesAs the application is available on Internet, the litigant public can easily find out whether their cases are coming for hearing or not, with out bothering the advocatesSome courts are considering to reduce the generation of copies of Causelists, as most of the advocates are dependent on the Internet version of Causelists, thus the courts can save good amount money on annual basis NIC has made the Causelists of the following High Courts on its Web servers apart from the Supreme Court of India: Supreme Court of India High Court of Allahabad High Court of Andhra Pradesh Bombay High Court Bombay High Court - Nagpur Bench Delhi High Court High Court of Gujarat High Court of Madhya Pradesh - Indore Bench High Court of Madhya Pradesh - Jabalpur High Court of Karnataka Madras High Court High Court of Punjab & Haryana, Chandigarh High Court of Rajasthan - Jaipur Bench High Court of Rajasthan - Jodhpur High Court of Calcutta Ever since NIC has made the Causelists of the Supreme Court of India and High Courts available on Internet, this application has received huge response from the advocates and litigant public. To understand the enormous response the application has received, herewith one week's Day wise Hit statistics are enclosed. On an average it is receiving 10,000 hits per day. By any standard, it is a significant number for one application. For the purpose of illustration, some of the screens associated with the application are also enclosed.   High Courts Computerisation NIC took up computerisation of all 18 High Courts and 9 Benches on the lines of Apex Court's Computerisation. NIC implemented the List of Business Information (LOBIS) in all High Court Courts. Some of the High Courts' Cause List are also available on Internet. Many possible applications in all High Courts have been computerised. Most of the High Courts have opened query counters along with Filing Counters for providing pending cases information to the litigants and advocates. Facilities provided are: Causelists are generated automaticallyBunching/Grouping is done Computer based Filing Counters are openedQuery counters are availableJUDIS & COURTNIC are availableAll HCs are connected on NICNET/InternetDay to day Judgements and Orders are stored on computers District Courts Computerisation In 1997, NIC took up the computerisation of all 430 District Courts in the country on the lines of High Courts Computerisation Project. The basic objectives of the project are: to provide transparency of information to the litigants and advocates to help the judicial administration in streamlining its activities to provide judicial and legal databases to the District Judges   NIC provided three level training programs to the District Court officials. The three levels are:Computer Awareness Programs for the District Judges. These training programs were chaired by either the Hon'ble Chief Justice or one of the Hon'ble Judges of the concerned High Court.Supervisory level training at NIC State Centres. These supervisory level officials were identified and sent to NIC State Centres by the District Courts for training on day to day maintenance of the computers and its peripherals.In-house hands on training to the District Court officials working on the computer terminals. The District Informatics Officers of NIC posted at the District Magistrates' Office imparted this training. All officials have been trained on 'District Court Information System' (DCIS) SW. The DCIS Software is a huge general purpose Software package developed for the computerisation of District Courts. This software takes care of all aspects of District Court needs. The project is yet to pickup momentum in most of the District Courts for want of interest from the District Court officials. NIC has proposed to conduct another round of Training to the users.   From zamrooda at sarai.net Thu Jun 27 13:22:22 2002 From: zamrooda at sarai.net (zamrooda) Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 13:22:22 +0530 Subject: [Commons-law] Cyber Evidence Message-ID: <02062713222202.00643@legal.sarai.kit> Interesting bit of work going on..... we may want to look into it. For more information vist: http://www.naavi.org/cerc4india/index.html For the First Time in India, Cyber Evidence can be Archived !!! After the passage of the Information Technology Act-2000 (ITA-2000), Electronic Documents have come to be recognized as equivalent to written documents for the purpose of law. Similarly, Digital Signatures affixed as per the provisions of the ITA-2000 will be considered equivalent to written signatures. It is therefore envisaged that Electronic Documents such as E-Mails and Web Pages will be potential evidences to prove contracts by any party to a contract. The Indian Evidence Act has also been suitably amended by the ITA-2000 to provide for presentation of evidences of Electronic Documents either in the electronic form itself or as certified print outs. Lack of Legally Acceptable Digital Signature Facility If however, a person has to produce an E-Mail as an irrefutable evidence in the Court of law, it should be digitally signed using a Digital Certificate issued by a Certifying Authority licensed in India. At the time of launching this service, no valid digital certificate issue service is available in India to the individuals. Hence, despite the law having been passed nearly two years ago, it is still not practically  feasible for a member of the public to send a digitally signed e-mail and keep it as evidence for future reference in a court of law. Instead of passively waiting for the Government to do some thing in this regard, Naavi has pioneered the Cyber Evidence Archival Center (CEAC) aimed at  providing the Indian public with a means of using Cyber Evidence when required. Bridging The Digital Divide Apart from the non availability of valid digital certificate service in India at present, this unique service is also relevant for bridging the Digital Divide in  the population. For example, the need to send a  Digitally signed e-mail some times arises suddenly, where as the grant of the Digital Certificate itself may take some time. Also,  for some, the need for sending a digitally signed e-mail, may be an one-off requirement by  and the digital certificate may be an expensive option for such one-off use. More over, every one including many corporate executives are not comfortable in handling Digital Certificates. Particularly, the risk of compromise of the private key for those who may  have to share computers either  at the office or  in a Cyber Cafe is too high for comfort. It is also natural for occassional users to set easy to remember passwords as otherwise they may forget it. Such passwords are prone to hacking or compromise by negligence. Considering all these aspects, it is  felt that a large section of the Indian population may forego using Digital Signatures or get into legal problems by using them without adequate safeguards.  This is likely to widen the Digital Divide between the Digital Haves and Digital Have-Nots. In order to find a solution to this problem Naavi.com has set up the Cyber Evidence Archival Center, a pioneering venture in India. Even though the service is fully functional for the envisaged objectives, it is in the process of being  further developed  to make it  fully automated so that costs can be brought down. Naavi.com would also be looking forward to converting this service as an E-Governance project if any Government authority is interested. Who Can Avail The Service The service will be initially available to only persons resident in India and the Certificate will be delivered to only addresses in India. Location The Central Register of CEAC will be maintained for the time being in Chennai at the Administrative office of Cyber Law Solutions Ltd. The register will be kept for a minimum period of 10 years and backed up electronically. Naavi will be the sole Authorised Signatory for certifying the registrations for the time being. Objective The purpose of CEAC is to enable public to voluntarily submit Electronic Documents for registration for future use. CEAC will on payment of requisite fees, register the document and issue a certificate in print form to the registrant. The service is entirely a private initiative and no official backing of any sort is claimed from any Government establishment. Support In the event of the evidence coming up for examination in a Court of Law and on specific request,  the fact of Registration would be confirmed online without any additional charge. In case a personal appearence is required in any Court in India to testify on the registration aspect,  an authorised official of the CEAC will be deputed  for the purpose subject to the payment of necessary charges including travelling and stay as may be required. Privacy The CEAC Register will not be open to the public for examination except under any order to that effect from a competent Court of Law in India When it is considered expedient in the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of the Country or in the interest of prevention of any crime likely to be committed, as per the  the judgment of CEAC, the contents of any document may be revealed to an appropriate Law Enforcement Authority. In all such cases the judgment of CEAC will be final and no objection of any sort from the registrant or the concerned parties thereto would be entertained. Disclaimer The registration of any document with CEAC does not substantiate the truth of any statements made in the registered document The identification of the registrant will be based on the declaration of the registrant only. This service is meant to be a public service which is considered useful and serving a community need. CEAC however makes it absolutely clear that this  is not a service backed by any Government regulation at this point of time. The users of the service,  will use the service at their own risk and responsibility and the center including its owners, officials or workers connected therewith would not be liable in any manner either to the registrant or the other parties to an archived document for any reason whatsoever. CEAC does not guarantee that the validity of the evidentiary value of the registered documents will be accepted by any Court. Caution: This Service is Not a Notary Service under the Notaries Act 1952. The certification process used by CEAC will  follow the principles enunciated in Information technology Act 2000 No document that may be indicative of any unlawful Act as per the law in force in the country would be registered and supported by CEAC. CEAC reserves the right to reject registration of any document without assigning any reason. The service of the CEAC is an "Intermediary Service" under section 79 of the Information Technology Act 2000 and the liabilities of the center in respect of the messages passing through them would be restricted to the extent determined there in. Every person who avails the service is deemed to have read the terms and conditions mentioned here and in particular confirm that he understands that this service is not a service of the Notary under the Notaries Act 1952. Disputes Any disputes arising out of the service will be subject only to an arbitration from a single arbiter to be chosen by the complainant from a list of a  five arbiters to be provided by CEAC. The jurisdiction for any dispute resolution will be Chennai. Costs of such arbitration will be on the complainant. Types of Documents to be Registered CEAC will presently register the following three products E-Mail to E-Mail,   E-Mail to Any Postal Address in India, and Web Pages. Details of the features of these services are available through the hyperlinks above. The services have been launched as a manual prototype and will be technologically updated soon. The pricing may be altered suitably on such automation. Naavi (Na.Vijayashankar) June 24,  2002 http://www.naavi.org/cerc4india/index.html From lawrenceliang at vsnl.net Thu Jun 27 18:31:15 2002 From: lawrenceliang at vsnl.net (lawrenceliang at vsnl.net) Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 18:31:15 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Commons-law] transcripts of the meeting in Bangalore on art & the public domain Message-ID: <20020627130115.D87D0114BE9@webmail.vsnl.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20020627/d889a4dc/attachment.pl -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: transcriptsofproceedings.doc Type: application/msword Size: 163328 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20020627/d889a4dc/attachment.doc