Apps such as FaceTime and WhatsApp are coming to the aid of the judiciary in the deliverance of justice.
In an unusual move, the Kerala High Court on Tuesday employed such video-calling technology for holding a virtual inspection to identify the nature of a disputed land at Agali village in Palakkad.
The Division Bench of the court headed by Chief Justice S.V. Bhatti and Justice Basant Balaji used the popular applications to ascertain the nature of the holding. The court had asked the officials of the Forest department to be present at the disputed site and beam the visuals of the holding straight to the court hall using FaceTime and WhatsApp.
The judges made use of the technology to ascertain whether the holding in question was forest land or farm land. The judges could also directly ascertain the contours of the holding and the distance of the property from some nearby landmarks, including a river that flowed nearby, using the virtual mode. The question of whether the disputed land is a revenue holding could also be verified by the judges through the process.
A Bench headed by Mr. Bhatti had earlier used the technology for deciding the nature of the holding in another case.
The court made use of the technology in a petition moved by an NGO, One Earth One Life, which had moved a public interest litigation in the High Court against alleged encroachment of forest land.
The petitioners had moved a writ petition complaining that a few parties had secured favourable orders from the Forest Tribunal by suppressing some material facts about the title of the property in question. The NGO, which was represented by its lawyer Daisy Thampi, contended that the private individuals who had taken huge tracts of forest land on lease had also taken possession of some other holdings which were not mentioned in the description of the property in any of the official records.
She also argued that the survey numbers of the property which was taken on lease did not match the survey numbers of the holding in their possession.
The High Court, which has sought the original records of the holdings and the relevant orders issued by the tribunal and other courts, posted the case for June 12.
