Practising lawyers, Judicial officers and judges will not have to turn pages of dozens of civil and criminal law books to get references of Supreme Court and High Court judgements as assistance in any legal case. Everything will be available on the tip of their finger. Lawyers and judicial officers will only have to use a computer or a phone to get recent Supreme Court and High Court judgements in Civil and Criminal cases.

Jharkhand High Court chief justice, justice Dr Ravi Ranjan on Saturday launched the e-hand book on Civil and Criminal cases. The e-hand book prepared by Jharkhand Judicial Academy is on the website of academy.

The judicial academy has prepared the e- hand book on civil and criminal trial to serve as practical guide to lawyers, in service officers and the new officers who shall be joining the Judicial service very soon.

The special features of the book on civil trial is that relevant provisions of Jharkhand Civil court rules have been incorporated along with the provisions of CPC, limitations Act, Stamp Act, Court Fees Act at one place.

This will give the judges a perspective to appreciate the interplay of different provisions while applying law to fact of a particular case.

The thrust is on principle of law and its applications in light of the up-to-date case law on the point. At places, different questions have been raised and answered to give the reader a clear grasp of the law on the point.

e-hand book of criminal trial is also designed to address some of the fundamental aspects of enquiry and trial like, institution of criminal cases, arrest, remand, bail, jurisdiction, cognizance, judgement with up to date case law. There are some important subjects like framing of charge, sentencing, victim compenstation etc which had been covered in the earlier publications of the academy so they have not been included in this edition.

The special feature of these two editions is that both of them are in digital form with hyper-links to the relevant provisions of CPC, Cr.P.C and the Case laws. The advantage of the hyper-link is that by one click one can have access to the complete text of the Judgment or the provision from the relevant statute.

During Covid pandemic time when physical distance has become a reality, there is an urgent need to innovate and improvise so that the cause of judicial education does not suffer.

The attempt to switch over to online is an effort in this direction. judicial academy is supposed to cater to the need based practical requirements of the subordinate courts in refresher courses.