On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 11:07 AM, Sumant Srivathsan <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > > Oh, that's definitely true (speaking as someone who has had to deal with > > complex electronic evidence and metadata in a case with a very non-tech > > oriented judge). > > > How are cases allocated to judges? Shouldn't their knowledge of the domain > play a role in their ability to determine how the law applies in a given > case? At the Supreme Court and High Court level, the allocation is decided largely by the Chief Justice of the court. In both instances there will be certain judges who will hear certain types of matters. For eg: If you file a taxation matter before the Supreme Court, your matter is likeliest to be heard by either Justice Kapadia or Justice SB Sinha. Basically there are designated judges for specific kinds of matters, which will generally be a branch of law which they either practised with distinction as lawyers, or constituted their specialty as junior or district level judges. In any event, there are tribunals for virtually every specialised law - Income Tax, Customs/Excise, Company affairs, consumer disputes, electricity matters - you name it, we've got it! So why would a non-tech-oriented judge be the best person to rule on a case with complex electronic evidence and metadata? What's a tech-oriented judge? Do you want him/her to have an engineering degree, an abiding interest in tech issues or the experience of having dealt with such questions earlier on a consistent basis? Basically, all judges are non-tech oriented on the first count, an overwhleming majority on the second count and very few of them fall in the third category. I believe the IITs and the National Judicial Academy have some kind of tie up for the training of current and prospective judges on tech issues.
