India’s judicial system has been on the path of digital transformation since Hon’ble Justice RC Lahoti proposed the constitution of an e-Committee during his tenure. Almost a decade since, the role of technology in justice delivery has become more clear and pronounced. Currently headed by Hon’ble Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, the e-Committee has outlined vision and goals for the third phase of digital transformation of Courts. The implementation of these goals is driven by the State judiciaries with support from the Department of Justice and the National Informatics Centre, and guidance from the e-Committee. 

Observations from the field indicate that States that have successfully adopted technologies in their Courts have an undeniable involvement of Judges who are driven by passion towards technology. Similarly, decision-making at the macroscopic level has been spearheaded by visionaries who are tirelessly working towards transforming Courts using technology. However, considering that these initiatives have made progress largely due to the vision and leadership of such judges at all cadres of the judiciary, there is uncertainty surrounding how these initiatives will be carried forward after their tenure. 

This proposed study intends to outline the frameworks for institutionalising innovations and processes brought forth by these change agents with the hope of strongly embedding these initiatives into the culture of Courts, ensuring their independence from judges’ tenure. To this end, we attempt to revisit and reimagine how the development of technology in the justice space is viewed and executed. Keeping ‘people’ as the focal point of the research, we explore design approaches that call for participation, collaboration and decentralisation in decision-making. We unpack this through three research questions:

• What are the elements that motivate judges to lead initiatives that enable digital transformation in Courts? 
• How can the motivations and decisions surrounding the introduction of technology be decentralised and translated into institutional measures that would bolster sustainability of innovations, beyond the tenure of these judges? 
• How can design thinking be defined in the context of judicial processes and how can it be strategically integrated in the process of building and introducing technology for justice?

We posit that effective stakeholder involvement, redesign of Court processes, alignment of technology with the realities of court administration and introduction of policies and roadmaps surrounding the administration of technology, form the core of adoption frameworks. Through our study, we bring attention to participatory approaches, bottom-up initiatives, design thinking and human-centred design as key tools to facilitate the execution of the proposed adoption framework by fostering a sense of ownership for innovations among all stakeholders in the justice system.