This is the culmination of my GCTP from Takshashila. As of April 2018, there are over three crore cases pending across the courts in India and more than 23% of the cases are pending for more than 10 years. These numbers tarnishes India's image in the Ease of Doing Business" index. India ranks 164/ 189 countries in enforcing contracts. With A.I. taking over the business world, this study assesses the impact, risks and ways to mitigate the technological and institutional potholes. Short Term Measures Case level and Court level Data collection Standardisation and Data Sanitization Distributed Ledger based Data Storage Centre of Excellence for A.I. Implementation Long Term Measures Bias Mitigation A.I. in Court Room Management and Scheduling A.I. in Risk Assessment A.I. in Judgement Assessment

1. A.I.
IN
INDIAN
JUDICIARY
- Moses Sam Paul
TECH & POLICY RESEARCH
5-May-2019

2. EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
WHERE AND HOW A.I.
CAN HELP WITH
PENDING COURT
CASES IN INDIA
As of April 2018, there are over three crore cases pending across the courts in
India and more than 23% of the cases are pending for more than 10 years. These
numbers tarnishes India's image in the Ease of Doing Business" index. India ranks
164/ 189 countries in enforcing contracts.
With A.I. taking over the business world, this study assesses the impact, risks and
ways to mitigate the technological and institutional potholes.
Short Term Meaures
Long Term Measures
Case level and Court level Data collection
Standardisation and Data Sanitization
Distributed Ledger based Data Storage
Centre of Excellence for A.I. Implementation
Bias Mitigation
A.I. in Court Room Management and Scheduling
A.I. in Risk Assessment
A.I. in Judgement Assessment

3. HOW TO READ
THIS SLIDE DOC
1. The Problem of Pending cases in India
2. Impact of Pendency on different agents of india
3. Causal Analysis of Pending Cases
4. Causal Analysis of Pending Cases - continued
5. Role for A.I. & Technology in mitigating the Causes
6. Process Flow of a Case in Civil and Criminal Case in India
7. A.I. in Indian Judiciary a Road Map
8. Data Collection Phase
9. Data Sanitisation Phase
10. Data Storage Phase
11. A.I. Algorithms Phase
12. Bias in A.I.
13. Public Impact Matrix of A.I.Implementation
14. Stakeholders
15. Stakeholders Management
16. Narrative Building

4. > 3 CRORE
PENDING CASES
As of April 2018, there are
over three crore cases
pending across the Supreme
Court, the High Courts, and
the subordinate courts
(including district courts)
PENDING FOR > 10 YEARS
TO DELAY JUSTICE IS INJUSTICE
- William Penn
1
23% CASES
In the High Courts, 23% of cases
have been pending for over ten
years. Further, over 29% of all
cases have been pending between
two and five years as of April
2018.
JUSTICE TOO LONG DELAYED IS
JUSTICE DENIED
- Martin Luther King Jr.
PENDENCY in INDIA
67%PRISONERS
UNDER TRIAL
PRISON IS A SECOND-BY-SECOND
ASSAULT ON THE SOUL, A DAY-TO-
DAY DEGRADATION OF THE SELF.
- Mumia Abu-Jamal
2 out of every 3 prisoners in India
are under trial, i.e. a person who
has been accused or charged with
committing an offence, but has
not been convicted and is still,
presumed innocent.2
3

5. INDIVIDUAL
JUDICIARY
* Loss of memory by witness, thereby affecting
the quality of justice
* Disappearance of witnesses
* Repeat offences
* Justice system is held in disrepute
* Corruption within the justice system
* Disinterest in judicial careers
* Waste of limited resources
GOVERNMENTHigh pendency and delays have economic costs
due to lost days and state of suspension of
business.
Dwindling trust in the system to enforce contracts
and protect private property means sorting to
alternate means which results in corruption. India
stands 164/189 countries in terms of enforcing
contracts
SOCIETY
As the 239th Report of the Law Commission of
India noted, delays in the investigation and
prosecution of criminal cases erodes faith in the
rule of law and the criminal justice system, which
has serious implications for the legitimacy of the
Judiciary from a societal perspective.
Pendency also increases the cost of legal fee
IMPACT OF PENDENCY
4
5
6
The pendency of a criminal case is like a sword hanging
over a person’s head, and directly affects their liberty, free
movement, and interaction in society, even if the accused
is not in prison.
8
7

6. According to the Report of
Supreme Court of India titled
“Subordinate Judiciary-
Access to Justice 2016”;
capacity constraints are the
main reasons for high level of
pendency.
Global demographic
standard: 50 judges per
million of population.
India : 18 Judges per million
U.S. - 102 per million
Australia - 48 judges per
million.
The process of selection of
judges has been a bone of
contention between the
executive and the judiciary
since last year. To decide
the new Memorandum of
Procedure, appointment of
new judges was adjourned
for a year. The proposed
MoP which gave the Centre
the power to reject any name
on the ground of national
security, was consequently
shot down by the SC.
Kerala, gets 28 new cases
per 1,000 people. It has a
literacy rate of over 90%.
Jharkhand, which has a
literacy rate of around 53%,
gets four cases per 1,000.
Increasing literacy leads to
increased litigations. With
constrained capacity the rate
of increased inflow is far
higher than the disposal rate
hence the net pendency
increases.
The government is the
largest litigant in India,
responsible for nearly
half the pending cases.
Many of them are
actually cases of one
department of the
government suing
another, leaving decision-
making to the courts. -
Huffington post
CAPACITY
CONSTRAINT
INCREASING
LITERACY
GOVERNMENT :
LARGEST
LITIGANT
CAUSES OF PENDENCY
POWER
BATTLE
9
10
11
12

7. The National Judicial Data
Grid website as on December 31,
2015, 2.6 crore cases are pending
only in lower courts of which
41.38% cases have been pending
for less than two years and 10.83%
have been pending for over 10
years.
Fast Track Courts was the first
implemented and successful solution
to the problem. Out of 36 lakh cases
that were transferred to the FTCs, close
to 30.7 lakh have been disposed of.
Fast Track Courts were started in 2005
but in 2011, the Centre cut off funding
and made it the State’s responsibility to
fund the FTCs out of their own
budgets. Since then 60% of these
courts have shut down even though the
programme only requires
approximately 0.1% of the state budget.
This is a resultant of
rampant “bribes for
bail” and postponing dates,
so much so that former
Chief Justice of India V.N.
Khare said in an
interview, “Judges are only
human, like us. They come
from the same society. Our
society is all about quick
successes. Short cuts are
taken. Even by the judges.”
INEFFICIENCY IN
LOWER COURTS
INSTITUTIONAL
FAILURE
CAUSES OF PENDANCY
FAST TRACK
COURTS BATTLE
13
14
15

8. CAPACITY CONSTRAINT
CASE FOR A.I. TECHNOLOGY in JUDICIARY
A.I. ROLECAUSE
IMCREASING LITERACY
INEFFICIENCY IN LOWER COURTS
FAST TRACK COURTS BATTLE
INSTITUTIONAL FAILURE
GOVERNMENT THE LARGEST LITIGATOR
POWER BATTLE
Limited Role in increasing the capacity constraint but A.I. can play a role in effective court room
management scheduing , attendance tracking etc thus making the efficiency go up
No Role
No Role
A.I. Prediction algorithm can help the government body decide whether to take up a case or not
Digitisation followed by court room management systems can help in improving the efficiency.
Auto- error detection and predictive algorithms can help with minimal staff support as well.
No Role
A single source of instantaneous truth of the case and court room data can bring in transparency
into the system and the working of the Indian Judiciary which can eliminate some of the
institutional failures

9. Institution
of suit
Issue and
service of summons.
Appearance
of defendant.
Written
Statement /Set off
Framing
of issues.
Evidence Cross-
Examination
Final
Hearing
JudgementReview of Decree / AppealExecution of decree
First Information
Report
Investigation Filing of
Charge Sheet
Framing of
Charges
Prosecution Evidence
and
cross- examination
Statement
of Accused
Evidence of Defence
and
its cross examination
Final ArgumentsDelivery of
Judgments
Arguments on sentence
PROCESS FLOW OF A CASE & TECH INTERVENTIONS
Civil Case
Criminal Case
Arguments on sentence
A.I. Technology Interventions
16

10. A.I. IN JUDICIARY
A ROAD MAP
CONTEXT
AI IN THIS CONTEXT
PRODUCES OPTIMIZATIONS
FOR EXISTING PRACTICE. IT
DETECTS PATTERNS, BUT
DOES NOT COMPREHEND
THE PHYSICAL WORLD.
Although smart contracts and general A.I.
are bleeding edge and with quantum
computing general A.I. might become a
reality, in this context , we are not taking
into account such technologies.
Data Collection Data Sanitisation Data Storage
Case Data
Court Data
Complementary
Department Data
Standardised Court Forms
Standardised Case Stages
& Orders
Standardise Case Details
A distributed ledger that
stores and processes data
locally
with ownership federated
yet the union data
registrars and processors
can pull reports and
efficiency data for
performance evaluation
with the long term goal of
increasing Indian court's
efficiency
With enough sanitised data
on case and court data the
following analytics can be
performed.
1. Descriptive Analytics
2. Predictive Analytics
3. Prescriptive Analytics
4. Cognitive Analytics
Analytics & A.I.

11. DATA COLLECTION STAGE
0 5 10 15 20
Institution of case
Amendment
Filing of Pursis
Issue of Notice
Deposition
Cross Examination
Hearing of Arguments
Order Passed
Others
Judgement Delivered
Utilization of Productive Time of Courts
% of court's productive time
Institution of case + Amendment + Filing of pursis - account for 20% of court timings and this can
be easily reduced by digital solitions
Strategy:
Convert existing data into Digital format and new data to be added directly in Digital format by phasing out
paper based forms as internet penetration and literacy increases. Non- internet users and illeterates can
avail services of court staff to file and process cases.
Technology:
OCR - Optical Character Recognition
RPA - Robotic Process Automation
IoT - Internet of Things
Short Term:
1. OCR - Converting Analog to Digital of existing Cases + Tagging and Indexing them as per standards
set.
2. Mobile and Desktop solutions to make digital data entry for the new cases
Medium Term:
1. RPA - Robotic Process Automation to pull data from complementary departments such as the crime
bureau
Long Term:
1. IoT enabled sensors will feed court data such as attendance etc based on facial recognition into the
Union A.I. Engine as per norms
Adam Ziegler, the managing director of the Harvard Law School Library Innovation Lab, wants to remove this barrier to entry. He has helped lead the
CaseLaw Access Project, an effort to digitize the entire historical record of U.S. court opinions and make that data available for legal algorithms to read and
train on.
Similarly India based Indian Kanoon and Daksh India, are doing similar work to digitise all the court cases and hosting it on the public domain for Data
scientists to use the same
Case Study: USA
Indian Equivalent
17
16

12. DATA SANITISATION STAGE
DECLARE CASE TYPES PUBLICLY
ENSURE THAT REFERENCES TO
STATUTES ARE CODED CORRECTLY
STANDARDISE CASE STAGES AND
ORDERS
VALIDATE DATA BEFORE MAKING IT
PUBLIC
STANDARDISE NAMES OF KEY
INDIVIDUALS
TRACK TRANSFERS AND OTHER
TRANSACTIONS
STANDARDISE CASE DETAILS
TRACK TRANSFERS AND OTHER
TRANSACTIONS
Standardisation case study
BASIC COMPONENTS OF MALAYSIA COURT BACKLOG
AND DELAY REDUCTION PROGRAM
Creating an Inventory of cases
The purging of “closed cases” and the separation of inactive
(“hibernating”)
cases for rapid closure or further processing (depending on
the interest of the parties)
Introduction of “Case Management” (Pre-Trial processing of
cases)
Introduction of a “Tracking system” to facilitate the closure of
older cases
Introduction of Court Recording and Transcription equipment
Development and installation of an automated Case
Management System
Creation of High Court Commercial Divisions to handle more
specialized
matters (Intellectual Property, Islamic Banking, and Admiralty)
In target centers, creation of “new” courts (specialized High
Court divisions in
Civil and Commercial Law, called the NCvC and NCC,
respectively)
Mediation
Other measures such as capacity building
18 19

13. DATA STORAGE
Supreme Court
High Court
District Court District Court
Registered
Think Tanks
(Legal & Tech)
Academia
<Legal, Tech & Policy>
External
Collaborators
NIC
<implementation agency>
Industry
<Legal & Tech >
A distributed ledger based
consortium under the join
leadership of the judiciary &
the executive that over
sees the operations of the
data flow and the process
in which consensus is
reached.
e-committee of
supreme court

14. A.I. ALGORITHMS
of all pending cases in courts in
India.
Govenment the major litigator
46% 70%to
95% of appeals by the Kerala
government had failed, which
suggests that those appeals
should not have been filed at all.
Such cases can be the first A.I.
use case that the government
uses. Before planning to file a
litigation against another
department, the government
agency can use an A.I. based
predictive algorithm to see if it's
worthwhile to litigate.
Short Term Medium Term Long Term
Risk Assessment
The Correctional Offender Management Profiling for
Alternative Sanctions (COMPAS) system, developed by a
private Michigan-based company called Equivant and
widely used to weigh a defendant’s risk of committing
another crime.
Such systems can give insights that can help a judge
arrive at a bail processing decision faster.
Judgement Assistant
In Canada, Randy Goebel, a professor in the computer
science department of the University of Alberta working in
conjunction with Japanese researchers, developed an
algorithm that can pass the Japanese bar exam. Now, the
team is working to develop AI that can "weigh
contradicting legal evidence, rule on cases, and
predict the outcomes of future trials," according to
Canadian broadcaster CBC.
The goal is to use machines to help humans make better
legal decisions. These judgment assistants can help
Judges make decisions faster.
Setup a Centre of Excellence for the Judiciary
which is multi disciplinary involving
1. Tech (Academics & Practitioners)
2. Legal (Academics & Practitioners)
3. Think Tanks (Legal & Tech)
4. NIC (Nodal Implementation Agency)
This CoE will report to the union minister, state
ministers and the e-committee of the supreme
court on a quarterly basis
Objectives:
1. Research on Bias in A.I.
2. Set A.I. Objectives
3. Develop and Extract data sets and Train models
4. Pilot and Iterate
5. Chart out implementation roadmap for the A.I.
algorithms
6. Digitise and Sanitise IPC and Indian Constitution
in a format that is Machine Readable.
20
21

15. Bias in A.I. & Way Forward
Can't stress enough on the importance of setting
up a Centre of Excellence to oversee the
implementation of A.I. in Indian Judiciary.
Consider an algorithm used by judges in
making sentencing decisions. It would
obviously be improper to use caste as one of
the inputs to the algorithm.
But what about a seemingly caste-neutral
input such as the number of prior arrests?
Unfortunately, arrests are not caste neutral:
There is plenty of evidence indicating that
lower caste Indians disproportionally
targeted in policing.
As a result, arrest record statistics are
heavily shaped by caste. That correlation
could propagate in sentencing
recommendations made by an AI system
that uses prior arrests as an input.
By definition, AI algorithms are not static. Rather they learn and
change over time. Initially, an algorithm might make decisions using
only a relatively simple set of calculations based on a small number
of data sources.
As the system gains experience, it can broaden the amount and
variety of data it uses as input, and subject those data to
increasingly sophisticated processing. This means that an
algorithm can end up being much more complex than when it was
initially deployed.
Notably, these changes are not due to human intervention to modify
the code, but rather to automatic modifications made by the
machine to its own behavior. In some cases, this evolution can
introduce bias.
Bias in Data Bias in A.I.Algorithms
Ways to mitigate
1. Fair Representation of all classes and sections
in the Data
2. Protection of sensitive variables in algorithms
with supplementary algorithms
3. Diversity stewardship in implementation
agency that build A.I. models for India
4. Authenticity of training data, but also the
authenticity of AI predictions
23
22
24

16. DATA PRIVACY
Court cases are public records.
In R. Rajagopal vs State Of T.N on 7 October, 1994 where the Supreme Court defined the scope of the Right to Privacy, it held that publication of court
records will not constitute any violation of the right to privacy.
It held:
"The rule aforesaid is subject to the exception, that any publication concerning the aforesaid aspects becomes unobjectionable if such publication is based
upon public records including court records. This is for the reason that once a matter becomes a matter of public record, the right to privacy no longer
subsists and it becomes a legitimate subject for comment by press and media among others. We are, however, of the opinion that in the interests of decency
[Article 19(2) an exception must be carved out to this rule, viz., a female who is the victim of a sexual assault, kidnap, abduction or a like offence should not
further be subjected to the indignity of her name and the incident being publicised in press/media."
DATA SECURITY
The Data storage mechanism proposed here takes into account data security as the key factor. A distributed ledger with end-end encryption of
sensitive data makes sure data is secure yet available for A.I. algorithms. The distributed node based architecture will let only authorised
personnel to access data along with a access time stamp and identity stamp.
DATA SECURITY & DATA PRIVACY

17. INDIVIDUAL
JUDICIARY
Judges' workload will reduce
Judiciary can attract young and bright minds
Important to keep all level of judiciary informed as A.I.
might be perceived as a threat to human jobs. A.I. is
just assisting Judges arrive at decisions faster.
GOVERNMENT
Effective enforcement of contracts and protection of private
property will boost India's ease of doing business and thus
help in influx of investments.
Enforcement cost might increase in the short run but in the
long run benefits will outweigh this
Government's stature will improve in the global stage
SOCIETY
Reduction in Legal Fee as there is more transparency in the
system which brings down the transaction cost [Search and
Information Cost, Bargaining cost].
Pushback may happen from the society with respect to data
collection and algorithmic predictions it's essential to keep
the common man and law students informed through road
shows and proper communication
PUBLIC IMPACT MATRIX of A.I. in Judiciary
If the right message is conveyed common man will be
elated as the justice system becomes transparent.
Transparency about data collection, storage, processing is
key to gain the trust of an individual

18. STAKE HOLDERS
STAKEHOLDER
Law commission of India
National Mission for Delivery
of Justice and Legal Reform
Arrears committees at courts
Academics (Tech)
Academics (Legal)
Industry (Tech)
Industry (Legal)
Think Tanks
Supreme court - e-committee
NIC
Department of Justice
INTEREST POWER WHAT WE NEED PERCEIVED ATTITUDE / RISK
High
High
High
Medium
Medium
Low
Low
High
Medium
Medium
High
High
High
Medium
Low
Low
High
High
Medium
Medium
Medium
High
Case for Law Making
Research + Law
Transparency & Enforcement
Research - A.I. Bias & Use cases
Research - parameters for decisions
Technology
Practical Knowledge
Policy Research
Support and Legislation
Implementation
Budget Allocation and Disbursement
Positive
Positive
Sceptical
Positive
Positive
Neutral
Neutral
Positive
Sceptical
Overworked NIC
Positive

19. STAKE HOLDER ENGAGEMENT
Little Some High
Little
Some
High
Power/Influence
Interest
Watch Keep Satisfied Actively Manage
Keep On Our Side
Keep InformedCommunication
Law Commission of India
NMDJLR
DoJ
Arrears Committee
Think Tanks
e-committee
NIC
Common Man
Academics (Tech)
Academics (Legal)
Industry (Tech)
Industry (Legal)

20. 2/3 prison inmates in India right
now are under trial though they
aren't convicted. A.I. Powered
courts will make sure no
innocent person languishes in
prisons anymore.
Getting rid of pending cases is
in the interest of everyone.
The Judiciary doesn't have to
over work.
The Society will have a
transparent and swift judicial
system.
India stands 164/189 countries
in terms of enforcing contracts
which significantly reduces
India's aspirations to be a
global super power.
A strong, transparent and swift
Judiciary will catapult India's
image in the global arena.
Which means potential to
attract more investments and
more businesses will setup
shop in India and the economy
will leap forward again.
HUMAN
CONTEXT
SHARED
PURPOSE
INDIA BRAND
Narrative Building
Pixelast | Design and Tech

21. THANK YOU
Pixelast | Design and Tech
Discussions with
helped in the development of this slidedoc.
Mr. Vishnu Padmanaban - Data Journalist at Mint
Mr. Surya Prakash - Fellow and Programme Director - Daksh India
Dr. Sushant Sinha - Founder at Indian Kanoon

22. 1 https://www.prsindia.org/policy/vital-stats/pendency-cases-judiciary pending cases
2 https://www.prsindia.org/policy/vital-stats/pendency-cases-judiciary how ling > 10 years
3 67% inmates are under trial As per the latest 'Prison Statistics India — 2015' Report released by the National Crime Record Bureau (“NCRB”), 67.2 percent of our total prison
population comprises of under trial prisoners.
4 https://www.firstpost.com/long-reads/indias-criminal-justice-system-an-example-of-justice-delayed-justice-denied-3475630.html
5 Analysis of Causes for Pendency in High Courts and Subordinate Courts in Maharashtra - Dushyant Mahadik
6 Taken from Opening Speech at The Provincial Case Flow Management Workshop, accessible at
http://www.judiciary.org.za/doc/Speech-CJ_19-July-2012_EL.pdf
7 239th Report of the Law Commission of India
8 Ease of Doing Business - World bank - http://www.doingbusiness.org/en/data/exploreeconomies/india
9 https://www.sci.gov.in/pdf/AccesstoJustice/Subordinate%20Court%20of%20India.pdf capacity constraint
10 https://www.hindustantimes.com/india/nda-memorandum-judiciary-govt-face-off-brewing-over-appointments/story-uuvCWM5RxyuzBxzLuFtRDJ.html power battle
11 https://www.hindustantimes.com/editorials/shortage-of-judges-will-shackle-india-s-growth/story-tpt7b8Wlc87mh4HkR2XVWN.html literacy
12 https://www.huffingtonpost.in/2016/04/28/the-indian-government-is-_n_9776988.html largest litigant
13 https://ecourts.gov.in/sivaganga/national-judicial-data-grid lower courts
14 https://factly.in/fast-track-courts-in-india-might-help-reduce-pendency-in-courts-but-are-the-governments-interested/ fast track courts
15 Analysis of Causes for Pendency in High Courts and Subordinate Courts in Maharashtra - Dushyant Mahadik
16 Analysis of Causes for Pendency in High Courts and Subordinate Courts in Maharashtra - Dushyant Mahadik
17 https://hub.packtpub.com/harvard-law-school-launches-its-caselaw-access-project-api-and-bulk-data-service-making-almost-6-5-million-cases-available/
18 http://dakshindia.org/state-of-the-indian-judiciary/11_chapter_01.html#_idTextAnchor0024]
19 Analysis of Causes for Pendency in High Courts and Subordinate Courts in Maharashtra - Dushyant Mahadik table 3.5
20 https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/01/equivant-compas-algorithm/550646/
21 https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2018/12/232890-ai-judges-and-juries/fulltext?mobile=false
22 https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2019/01/03/artificial-intelligence-and-bias-four-key-challenges/ bias issues
23 https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2019/01/03/artificial-intelligence-and-bias-four-key-challenges/ bias issues
24 https://towardsdatascience.com/mitigating-algorithmic-bias-in-predictive-justice-ux-design-principles-for-ai-fairness-machine-learning-d2227ce28099 bias mitigation
References