Now, biometric ID system for Delhi courts

Siddhartha Sarma

A cutting-edge fingerprint identification system to be put in place across Delhi courts shortly will effectively mean that anyone - convict or surety provider or staff - wishing to misrepresent himself, tamper or misplace court records will have to put together an operation on the lines of Tom Cruise and Jean Reno in Mission: Impossible.

The Delhi District Courts Judicial Committee, fresh from a successful computerisation programme in courts here, has decided on implementing the Biometric Authentication system.

It will consist of a fingerprint reader installed in each court and connected to each court complex’s local area network, as well as a software for operating it. “The software required for this will be of a higher order than those used in portable notebooks,’’ said Additional Sessions Judge and member of the Judicial Committee, Talwant Singh. “This is because it has to be foolproof and highly accurate, will be working realtime, and will have to handle a substantial database.’’

A separate database is to be maintained in the individual computer terminals in each court with details of court staff, who will identify themselves on the system while reporting for work each day.

The more vital function the system will perform will be concerning undertrials. “An undertrial being produced for the first time will have his details entered along with his fingerprint. Any other person will not be able to pose as him later,’’ ASJ Singh remarked.

The undertrial database will be connected to a proposed Delhi Police database due to come up across police stations in each district, as well as to a fingerprint database already completed in Tihar for undertrials and convicts. Habitual criminals , on being arrested, will be identified in realtime with all three databases in operation.

The court biometric system will also address another practice prevalent in courts: professional bondsmen who stand surety for several undertrials simultaneously. “Currently, the only authentication for surety providers are ration cards, which can be forged, or bank documents or proof of employment,’’ ASJ Singh said. “This system will ensure that these persons will not appear, under different names or addresses, in different courts to stand surety in cases,’’ he added.

The system will be installed on a trial basis shortly. Meanwhile, its use in the Registry, computer room and other document storage sections will be followed by restricted access to these sections for staff.

The system will lead to an accurate record of which documents have been accessed by which staff.