The National Company Law Tribunal is planning to introduce paperless courts within the next four to six months, NCLT President, Chief Justice ( retd.) M.M. Kumar said. He also said that the body would start functioning from three more cities. “We are planning to begin having paperless courts and the project is being implemented by NIC” he said. Citing the instance of ‘paper-books’ needed to be put together in cases of says, mergers and amalgamation, Justice Kumar said that once the paperless courts system is implemented “the entire petition would be uploaded.” He said this in response to a query as to how NCLT was planning to harness technology. Earlier he said that there was scope of increasing efficiency of the respective Benches by preparing synopsis of cases and limiting prolonged arguments. This would also hasten up cases, he said adding that while earlier High Courts heard company matters perhaps twice weekly, now the NCLT Benches hear such cases five days every week. He said that the number of benches would increase to 24 within a year, while regional offices of NCLT would be set up in Kochi, Jaipur and Bhubaneswar within two to three months. The Central Government constituted National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) under section 408 of the Companies Act, 2013 (18 of 2013) effective June 2016. It now has eleven Benches and is present in Ahmedabad, Allahabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Guahati, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai. — Special Correspondent
