Courtesy of the Goa Blog (although it's also in today's Hindu (Chennai edition):
Country's first e-law library inaugurated
Panaji (PTI): Goa Chief Minister Digambar Kamat inaugurated the country's first e-law library here aimed at facilitating legal practitioners.
"Justice has to reach the common man and if this concept succeeds in giving justice, only then we can say it is working," Kamat said while inaugurating the library at the Bombay High Court on Saturday, adding that it would serve as a model for other Bar Councils.
The Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa, which is the biggest among bar councils in the country, is the brain behind the concept of on-line library.
The e-library would make judgements available at the click of the button. Lawyers would get a printout of any judgement they needed for ready reference, Council Vice-Chairman Jayant Jaibhave said.
"The Bar Council of India has decided to make computer education mandatory in all law colleges across the nation," Additional Solicitor General of India Rajendra Raghuwanshi, said.
More detail from Nasik Times
The much needed Computerised Law Library, which was inaugurated by Chief Justice of the Supreme Court KG Balkrishnan, is the brainchild of Adv Jayant Jaibhave
The twenty-first century has brought with it speed, struggle, quality and competition. The IT revolution has taken the entire world by storm and hardly a field is left where computer is not used. The Indian Judiciary System too is no exception to this. The computers are used on a large scale in the Indian Judiciary System for planning cases, hearings and investigations. Many lawyers also carry their own computers punched with requisite data about the dates of hearings in the court, legal provisions, judgements delivered by Supreme Court and High Courts, etc. Not all the lawyers can easily afford this facility.
Taking this into account, the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa, at its recent convention decided to implement the Computerised Law Library, at the courts across the State. This unique scheme of computerised law library was inaugurated by Chief Justice of the Supreme Court KJ Balkrishnan at the convention held on July 12, in the presence of Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court, Swatantrakumar.
Coincidently, Adv Jayant Jaibhave of Nashik, unanimously elected as the Vice President of the Bar Council of Maharashtra and Goa at this convention was the one who had implemented this concept in Nashik way back in 2003. It was finally implemented in 2005 at the Nashik District Court – thereby becoming the first computerised library in the nation.
On the lines of this e-library in Nashik, a proposal was put forth to start such libraries at the Bar Councils throughout Maharashtra and Goa and Adv Jayant Jaibhave was made the president of the Computerised Law Library Scheme. At the cost of Rs one crore its implementation began at the Bar Council offices at tehsils, districts and High Courts.
The scheme was completed during the tenure of the president of the Bar Council Adv RL Khapre and inaugurated at the recent convention in Nagpur. Under this scheme, the Bar Council would be providing computers, printers, all the judgements of the Supreme Court from 1950, all the judgements of the Bombay High Court from 1901 and judgements of all the High Courts from 1965 to the Bar Councils of all the tehsils and district level in Maharashtra and Goa.
This apart members of the Bar Council will also get the information of all the laws in Maharashtra, the amendments, all the sections, subsections through this computerised law library and with the help of Internet all the district courts, High Courts and the Supreme Court would be linked with the Bar Councils of Maharashtra and Goa for getting the requisite information.
