Specifications
Judge/Benchclerk will be able to tag certain submissions as evidence
Judge/Benchclerk and parties to a case will be able to easily view the evidence of a case
Judge/Stenographer will be able to record witness testimony during an evidence hearing
Witness testimony will be signed by Witnesses and the Judge
Witness testimony will be easily accessible as evidence of a case
Prerequisites for the Module
Case File to exist in the system
A registered user that has joined a case
Documentary Evidence + Affidavits
Tagging and Untagging Submissions as Evidence: Certain submissions may be marked as evidence based on the discretion of the judge.
The judge or bench clerk may tag these submissions as evidence from the UI
On the discretion of the judge, submissions may be untagged as evidence during the case
No tagging/untagging of submissions as evidence will be possible once the Judgement has been passed/case is in ‘Disposed’ stage.
View and Download Evidence: Evidence will be visible to all parties of a case in the documents section. The parties can view and download evidence from the document section.
Upload of Documentary Evidence
Witness Testimony
Testimony Formats:
Witness Deposition formats will be available - with placeholders for common attributes
Based on the values of attributes, the deposition template will be populated
Additional content will be added by the Judge/Stenographer while recording the witness deposition.
Record Witness Testimony: There may be one or multiple witnesses presented as evidence.
The typist will be able to select the witness the testimony is being recorded for from the complainants + respondents + witnesses added in the case file
At one point, 1 witness deposition may be tagged to ‘Complainants’ or ‘Respondents’.
We need to ensure that witness is added to the system before they are presented in court
The typist will be able to record the Witness Testimony in writing during an Evidence Hearing
The judge will be able to see in real time the witness testimony being recorded (similar to transcripts)
Witness Testimony Workflow:
Once a witness testimony is recorded, it is sent for Digital Signing to the Witness.
Once signed by the Witness, it is sent for Signing by the Judge
On successful signing, the Witness testimony will be published in PDF format and auto tagged as evidence
The pdf will be available for view and download in the documents tab of the ‘View Case’ File screen
Once witness testimony is published, it will automatically be tagged as evidence by the system.
Functional Specifications
Functional specs are available here
Assumptions
Theme
Assumption
Evidence
Litigants/Advocates cannot tag a submission as evidence. Only bench clerk/judge will be able to tag documents as evidence
Recording of Physical evidence against cases is not required as part of NIA. If required, a copy of the same will be uploaded to the system.
No other transcripts/depositions apart from witness deposition are considered as evidence
Documents cannot be marked as evidence once a case is disposed
Witness
Witnesses can be added to a case by the Judge/benchclerk without an associated workflow.
Witness Testimony
Witness Testimony is only recorded in an evidence hearing.
Only a witness and the judge have to sign a witness testimony
For Witness testimony uploaded as evidence, the other party cannot file a response
No voice/video recordings of witness depositions will be stored.
Ideas for Future Development
Recording/Tagging of Physical evidence against cases
Maintaining chain of custody of physical evidence
For witness depositions uploaded as affidavits, the format of the affidavit will not be provided
Translation and transcription of witness deposition in regional languages
Conversion of Physical Documents to Digital Formats via OCR
Ability to let Police provide evidence in certain cases
Tagging of physical and oral evidence separately. Within oral evidence, tagging chief examination and cross-examination separately
If an issue with marking a document as evidence, the accused can add a comment on a document as objections
The same evidence may be associated with multiple cases. E.g. a knife may be a piece of evidence in more than one murder case if two murders took place with it. Currently, in V1, we are tag evidence to a case
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