Today, Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud cited the State government’s role in funding digital infrastructure in courts. While addressing the matter, CJI noted that such funds were not provided by the State governments referring to the incident during the COVID-19 pandemic. He mentioned that during the pandemic, various High Courts faced difficulty in acquiring the necessary funds to purchase licenses for video conferencing software. CJI further said, “There are times when state governments also don’t provide funds. I will not name the High Court, but during the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a High Court that did not have money to pay for licenses to have video conferencing software. We removed some licenses from the Supreme Court and gave them. It is dirt cheap.” On a similar note, Justice Abhay S Oka, who is currently serving as Supreme Court judge, revealed that during the COVID-19 pandemic, he was Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court, judges and registry staff paid for the license of video conferencing software (Zoom) using their own credit cards. He also said that to obtain reimbursement for those payments, it took more than four months.
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