New Delhi, Sep 25 The Delhi government is working on revamping necessary infrastructure for supporting virtual court hearings of inmates in city jails as part of implementation of the new criminal laws with an estimated cost of more than Rs 27 crore, officials said on Friday.
The proposal of Delhi Prisons (Home department) for setting up high speed local area network (LAN) network in Tihar and Rohini jails to support 840 video conferencing based court hearings of inmates was recently approved by technical evaluation committee (TEC) of the government, they said.
The existing LAN in the jails is over two decades old and has become obsolete. However, the existing LAN infrastructure in Tihar and Rohini set up in 2004 and 2010 have not been updated, according to the documents.
The need of a high speed LAN was felt in view of growing use of various NIC developed apps such as e-Prisons, e-Parole, e-Furlough among others, implementation of the new criminal laws and implementation e-Courts.
There are comprehensive provisions under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS), for video conferencing of criminal court trials and judicial proceedings. Its Section 187, permits court hearings of accused in judicial custody through video conferencing
In view of these requirements of virtual hearings and growing use of internet in official purposes, the need of a high speed LAN network becomes “very crucial” to provide secure, reliable, scalable and better quality of service, officials said.
The cost of the project is estimated around Rs 27.54 crore, and it is expected to be ready in five months after bidding, officials said.
The TEC has given in-principal approval for setting up the high speed LAN network in the Delhi jails for virtual court hearings of inmates.
It has advised the Prison department to consider utilising NIC provided service which are available free of cost, as part of the proposed network and security infrastructure, officials added.
(PTI News)
