New Delhi: In a first, the Supreme Court Tuesday began using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and technology driven by ‘natural language processing’ to provide live transcription of its hearings.
The experimental live transcription has been launched only in the courtroom of Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud for now. The CJI is currently heading a five-judge constitution bench hearing the case related to the Maharashtra political crisis.
Announcing the initiative, CJI Chandrachud said, “We’ll see how it works, especially in the constitution bench matters, because then we’ll have a permanent record of arguments. Of course, it helps judges and the lawyers, but it will also help our law colleges. They can analyse how matters are argued…It is a huge resource.”
A screen displaying the live transcription of court proceedings, which faces the lawyers, has been placed in courtroom number 1. The SC also intends to publish transcripts of oral arguments on its website. This service is being provided by TERES, which has been providing similar services during arbitration proceedings. More recently, it had also provided transcription services during the Delhi Arbitration Weekend held from 17 to 19 February, and saw CJI Chandrachud delivering the keynote address.
Explaining the process, CJI Chandrachud said, “If there are two or more voices at the same time that causes a little bit of a problem. But they have personnel who will clean up the errors by the evening.”
“They suggested that during the course of the day, the counsel will get the link so that the counsel can look at it. By the evening, they would have cleaned up the entire transcript and given it to us,” he added.
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Indira Jaising sought audio transcripts
Last month, the Supreme Court had said that it would take into account suggestions made by senior advocate Indira Jaising for the court to put in place a mechanism for live streaming of court proceedings.
She had made three major suggestions. Firstly, she demanded that the link for live streaming of a hearing may be made available on the cause list to facilitate access. Secondly, she had suggested that apart from constitution bench hearings, which are presently live streamed, a provision may be made for live streaming of other proceedings involving matters of importance too. Thirdly, she had proposed preparation of an audio transcript of submissions before the court.
The top court had also allowed Jaising to submit a comprehensive note with her suggestions before the secretary general of the Supreme Court “so that they can be taken into account when modalities for live streaming are formulated”.
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