Madras High Court. File
| Photo Credit: K. Pichumani
Observing that the Tamil Nadu Police Department lags behind in leveraging information technology, the Madras High Court has directed it to ensure that the entire process of a criminal case, right from the stage of receipt of a complaint till the delivery of judgment, is digitised and updated online on a real-time basis.
Justice A.D. Jagadish Chandira took serious note of the long delay in implementing the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS) 2.0 project by the State Police Department and ordered that it should be put in place within four months, failing which the department must come up with a valid justification.
The judge pointed out that the Supreme Court’s e-committee had initiated a national-level Inter-operable Criminal Justice System (ICJS) platform, which interconnects the CCTNS portal used by State police departments, the Case Information System (CIS) portal used by courts, and the e-prison, e-forensic and e-prosecution portals.
The aim of ICJS was to ensure that the High Courts as well as trial courts could easily access First Information Reports (FIRs), case diaries, chargesheets, and such other documents uploaded in PDF format. The National Crime Records Bureau had been asked to work along with National Informatics Centre to implement ICJS.
Though the system, conceived by the Supreme Court and implemented by the Union Home Ministry, had been put to use in several States across the country, it was yet to be implemented in Tamil Nadu due to incompatibility of the existing CCTNS portal of the State Police Department with the national ICJS platform.
On being told that the compatibility issues could be resolved after the implementation CCTNS 2.0, which remains in the pipeline for quite a few years now, the judge ordered that the new software must be put to use within four months so that the problems faced by citizens could be reduced to a great extent.
He pointed out that courts were flooded with petitions seeking directions to the police to either register FIRs or file chargesheets. Even after the courts issue such directions, the police do not comply with the orders within the fixed time frame, forcing the litigants to file contempt of court petitions.
In response, the police, invariably, seek excuse for non-compliance of the court orders by citing frequent transfer of investigating officers. In some instances, though the police file the chargesheets on time, the information is not updated on the Police Department website, thereby keeping the litigants in the dark.
Stating that the lack of inclination to keep pace with technology could not be condoned in a digital era gripped by artificial intelligence, Justice Chandira said, it was high time that the Tamil Nadu Police Department use technology to the maximum for the collective benefit of the criminal justice system.
The orders were passed on a contempt of court petition filed by a complainant against Greater Chennai city police personnel for taking over two years to take effective action in a cheating case. The judge directed the High Court Registry to list the plea again after four months to ascertain the status of CCTNS 2.0.
Published – May 01, 2025 05:30 pm IST
