Court Design Handbook

Court Design Handbook for District Courts in India

The Design Handbook seeks to envision and implement a user-centric District Court Complex responsive to the needs of all diverse users, i.e., litigants, judges, lawyers, Court staff, witnesses, accused persons, police, public visitors and other stakeholders in the justice system. A principles-based framework is used to highlight associated guidelines and design considerations, for creating truly inclusive, accessible, efficient, comfortable, adaptable, and sustainable Courts where the experience of seeking and providing justice is significantly improved.

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Projects Authors And Acknowledgements

Shreya Tripathy is a Senior Resident Fellow at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy working as part of the Justice, Access, and Lowering Delays in India (JALDI) Initiative. Priyamvadha Shivaji is a Research Fellow at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy working as part of the Justice, Access, and Lowering Delays in India (JALDI) Initiative. Brinda Sastry is an architect, urban designer, and planner with experience in formulating policies, audit frameworks, and design guidelines, with a participatory approach, to ensure inclusive and equitable design of public places. Shreya Shetty is an architect and urban design consultant, Co-Founder of 369 Ochre Studio who assisted in drafting the Harmonised Guidelines & Standards for Universal Accessibility in India 2021, drafted by the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) & Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee released by Central Public Works Department, Government of India under Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. Bhagyalaxmi Madapur , Co-Founder of 369 Ochre Studio in Bengaluru, India, is an architect and urbanist who worked as a contract consultant with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on the project "Sponge City: Towards Building Flood Resilient Kolkata," which involved creating educational materials-infographic handbooks, videos, and brochures aimed at strengthening the capacity of Kolkata Municipal Corporation for resilient urban services. Abubakar Shaikh is an architect and Art Lead at Autovrse. Gayatri Ganesh is an architect and Experience Designer at Autovrse. Milind D.P. is the Executive Vice President, Consultancy & Projects, BNA Technology Consulting Ltd. His division is focused on IT Infrastructure Design, Project Management and Monitoring of ICT Projects. Arun Kumar is an acoustic consultant at HMPL Consulting Pvt Ltd, Bangalore, with over 8 years of expertise in Architectural, Environmental, and Industrial Acoustics, dedicated to shaping sound environments for optimal experiences. Akshatha Hariharan is an architect exploring the realms of Visual & User experience design. Rama Raghavan is an Architectural writer and researcher based in Pune. As a pedagogue, she has curated courses in Accessibility and Universal Design. She has worked on several publications that intricately connect the built environment with socio-spatial dimensions. This report has been in the making for over two years and owes a great deal to the inputs provided by a multitude of people. The authors would like to thank the following: Deepika Kinhal (Team Lead, JALDI) for her guidance throughout the project and for reviewing the report. The authors are also grateful to Reshma Sekhar (Former Senior Resident Fellow, JALDI) for her contribution to the conceptualisation of the Handbook. Dr. Gaurav Raheja (Professor of Architecture, IIT Roorkee) and Dr. Rahela Korakhiwala (Author, From the Colonial to the Contemporary: Images, Iconography, Memories, and Performances of Law in India's High Courts) for their guidance in the conceptualisation stage. Justice Badar Durrez Ahmad (Former Chief Justice, Jammu & Kashmir High Court), Justice Ponugoti Naveen Rao (Former Acting Chief Justice, Telangana High Court) and Mr. Suresh Kogilgere (Former Registrar, Karnataka High Court) for their inputs for the project. Dr. Tanya Machado (Professor of Clinical Psychology (Rtd). Consultant Clinical Psychologist) and Dr. Ria Fernandez (Rehabilitation Specialist, Mazumdar Shaw Hospital) for their inputs on child-friendly design and providing trauma-informed design considerations for vulnerable witnesses. Akhilesh (Project Second Chance) for his inputs on safe, secure, and humane design considerations for accused persons. Nilesh Singit (independent accessibility expert) and Dr. Sanjay Jain (Professor at National Law School of India University, Bengaluru), members of the Supreme Court Committee on Accessibility, for their inputs on ensuring universal accessibility. Alok Prasanna Kumar (Co-founder and Team Lead, Vidhi Karnataka), and Vidhi Fellows Manmayi Sharma (Senior Resident Fellow, Disability Inclusion & Access), Yashaswini Basu (Outreach Lead, Nyaaya), Yogini Oke (Impact and Partnerships Fellow), Shireen Yachu (Communications Fellow, Impact Collective) and Somya Jain (Research Fellow, Disability Inclusion & Access) for their inputs on the project. Damini Ghosh (Team Lead, Disability, Inclusion & Access at Vidhi) and Prof. Sanjay Kanvinde (Senior Partner, Kanvinde Rai & Chowdhury) for peer-reviewing the Handbook and providing their invaluable feedback. Over the months of February and March 2024, four round-table consultations were held with experts from various fields, on the following themes covered in the Handbook: Institutional capacity building; Making District Courts safe, secure and comfortable; Incorporating Universal Design Principles; and Facilitating efficient and future-ready Court Complexes. The authors would like to thank the following participants for their inputs during the sessions: Justice (retd.) Ponugoti Naveen Rao (former acting Chief Justice at Telangana High Court), Prof. Jyoti Dogra (Professor at Indian Law Institute), Dr. Sheila Ramaswamy (Technical & Operational Lead at NIMHANS), Ms. Arushi Anthwal (Legal Counsel at Counsel to Secure Justice), Ms. Kushi Kushalappa (Director, Support & Rehabilitation at Enfold India), Ms. Shirisha Reddy (Program Manager at Nyaaya Kannada), Mr. Amar Jain (co-founder at Mission Accessibility), Ms. Anita Iyer Narayan (Managing Trustee, sponsor and volunteer at Ekansh Trust), Prof. Gaurav Raheja (Professor Incharge, Inclusion & Accessibility Services at IIT Roorkee), Ms. Nivedita Krishna (founder-director at PACTA), Ms. Pooja Sastry (PhD candidate in architectural history at University College, Dublin), Ms. Shruti Dixit (practising lawyer in Lucknow), Mr. Akshay Jain (Assistant Program Manager at National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People), Mr. Rahul Bajaj (co-founder at Mission Accessibility) and Mr. R. Sri Kumar (former Head of Police Force in Karnataka and former Chief Vigilance Commissioner). The Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy is an independent think-tank doing legal research to make better laws and improve governance for the public good. The JALDI Initiative is a multi-year initiative that aims to advocate for and implement evidence-based reforms to eliminate the existing backlog in Courts and ensure that cases are disposed within reasonable timelines. This report is under the aegis of JALDI Innovation Lab, a multi-disciplinary collaborative of experts to design solutions for the justice delivery systems in India. Errors, if any, rest with the authors. Contact us at jaldi@vidhilegalpolicy.in

Sub Project Title

Design Guide for User-Centric Court Complexes

design

law

Jaldi Lab Aspect Title

Design

Design

Design-thinking and architecture to transform how accessing justice looks and feels

Jaldi Lab Aspect Title

Law

Law

Rules and policies to guide implementation of reforms in a fair, just and transparent manner.

Introducing the Court Design Handbook

Introducing the Court Design Handbook

Court Design Handbook: Reimagining Courts that meet the needs of all users

Court Design Handbook: Reimagining Courts that meet the needs of all users

Designing Justice: Introducing JALDI's New Video Series

Designing Justice: Introducing JALDI's New Video Series

Designing Justice: Interview with Anchal Bhateja

Designing Justice: Interview with Anchal Bhateja

Introduction to the series

Introduction to the series

How can we improve e-Filing in courts?

How can we improve e-Filing in courts?

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Bureau of Police Research and Development,

Project Report on the Malkhana Management System: 2020-21

(Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, 14 September 2020)

[“Malkhana Management System Report”]; ‘Need for Proper Malkhana Management in Criminal Justice System’ (

The Daily Star,

23 October 2021)

Malkhana Management System Report.

Steve Berdrow, ‘From the Pages of The Evidence Log: Property Room Design’

(International Association for Property and Evidence, Inc.)

Biological evidence;

Arms, ammunition, and military equipment;

Oversized objects of evidence;

Valuables, jewellery, money, etc.;

Drugs/narcotics seized in the course of investigation;

Other evidence(paper, photographs, and other smaller objects);

Bio-hazards, hazardous materials or flammable items;

Digital evidence in electrostatic bags with label and tagging; and

Stationery and storage boxes/covers, etc.

Objectives

Ensure that the Evidence Room in a District Court is a

highly secure and in a restricted area

where only authorised personnel are permitted to enter the room;

Provide adequate secure storage

to ensure that the original property/evidence is not tampered with;

Provide

facilities to process, preserve and carefully record and catalogue the articles/evidence with labels

(digital records, photographs, and paper evidence) in a systematic and appropriate manner for easy retrieval;

Ensure that the Evidence Room is

kept free of pests and rodents and other threats

that could damage the evidence, by carrying out rodent control treatment every 20 days;

and

Protect the evidence inside the Evidence Room from spoiling in any manner by

avoiding temperature fluctuation, keeping it moisture-free, and maintaining a fireproof and well-ventilated space

at all times.

Users

Security staff

Police Inspectors (PI) and accompanying police personnel

Staff and Technicians at the Evidence Room

Adjacencies

The Evidence Room must be located away from main circulation paths and the public zones of the building. (See:

Sections 1.4 and 1.5

It must be located adjacent to or in close proximity to the Police Inspectors’ Room (

Section 2.7.C

It must have access to secure corridors or entry from the outside, i.e., from site entrance and building entrance (

Section 1.2

) for the police officers to bring the evidence directly to the Evidence Room.

Storage shelves/compactor systems for general paper evidence and small objects.

Lockers/vaults to store valuable evidence such as money, jewellery and other valuables.

Room to store oversized evidence or flammable evidence.

Refrigerator or cooler to store biological evidence.

Separate room for the storage of guns, money and narcotics with additional security measures, and preferably with solid concrete block walls.

A fire-proof metal cabinet for flammables and explosives to ensure minimal damage.

A space for handling and storing electronic evidence.

Design Considerations

The Evidence Room must be designed to ensure that there is adequate space to segregate and store different kinds of evidence, through the following:

A built-in freezer or free standing units may be used to store biological evidence, depending on the space available within the Evidence Room. A built-in freezer may be preferred for a new construction or new remodels, whereas free standing units may be preferred for retrofitting purposes.

Storage shelves may be provided till the ceiling, with provision of ladders to access the higher shelves.

A Compact Storage System must be used which consists of compactors, used to store voluminous records on a limited floor area and to keep them free from dust or pest problems. A clear digitised cataloguing system must be maintained for easy retrieval of evidence when needed. Automated Identification and Data Capture Technologies such as Bar Code, QR Code, RFID, etc., may be used whenever possible.

The height and width of the storage shelves must be adjustable to have greater versatility in storage capabilities.

The walls of the Evidence Room must not be partition walls, but must be strong load-bearing walls which go up to the ceiling, to ensure protection from break-ins.

Wherever possible, a separate room within the Evidence Room of each District Court must be set aside for the deposit of arms, ammunition, and military stores. This separate room must be kept under double-lock and accessed with the supervision of the staff responsible for maintaining the Evidence Room.

Ventilation through a continuously-running, separate exhaust fan must be provided in the Evidence Room in the areas marked out for storage of narcotic drugs and evidence.

Ventilators (if provided) must be made secure.

The Evidence Room must be equipped with adequate technological requirements including a computer system with adequate access to internet facilities, scanners, photocopying facilities, and printers.

One-way pass through lockers must be provided between the storage space and the office space provided for the staff.

Strict access controls and monitoring mechanisms must be implemented to safeguard the integrity of evidence being stored in the Evidence Room.

All areas within the Evidence Room must have CCTV cameras which may be monitored through a video screen in the office. The CCTV feed must be collected into the Command & Control Centre (

Section 2.5.C.

) and only accessed via the Video Management Systems put in place. For further details, please refer to

PART D, Section 4.1.

Entrance to the Evidence Room

All entrances to the Evidence Room must have a double lock or two-factor authentication doors. The Record Room staff must be assigned with Biometric Access Control Cards.

All doors and door frames must be made of metal.

All door hinges must be designed in a manner such that the hinge pins cannot be removed.

The locks used must be of good quality, to ensure that keys are not easily duplicated. Wherever possible, a computerised card-key system may be preferred.

Office Space for Evidence Room Staff

A separate attached office space must be provided for the staff at the Evidence Room.

The office must have adequate space for desks and chairs for technicians/staff who receive the evidence submitted by the police officers, and lockers and benches to store the evidence before it is catalogued and stored appropriately.

Adequate space (desk surface) must be provided for processing the evidence i.e., marking the evidence and scanning to digitise it, wherever necessary.

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PART C - THE HANDBOOK

ORGANIZATION AND DESIGN OF SPACES OF THE COURT COMPLEX

2.9.

Legal Facilities

D. Evidence Room

The 'property room' or 'evidence room' in a Court Complex is commonly known as a Malkhana or Strong Room in most jurisdictions. The space is often used to store valuable evidence in ongoing as well as disposed cases. It is the designated place to store the property seized by the police during the course of investigation under the Code of Criminal Procedure (1973).

The evidence room may be used to store the following types of evidence or property:

Image 68: Examples of pass-through lockers, refrigerators, and Compact Storage Systems for storing evidence at the Bellevue Police Department, Washington (US) and the Oswego Police Department, New York (US)

Figure 65: Typical floor plan of an Evidence Room

References

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