Examine how digital infrastructure (e-filing, virtual hearings) can be leveraged to strengthen emergency access to justice without compromising judicial discipline.

Article 21 protects life and personal liberty at every hour, yet judicial remedies have long been tied to court calendars. Digital infrastructure can dissolve these temporal limits — provided widened access does not dilute procedural rigour.

The gap emergency access must fill

• Executive actions affecting liberty — late-night arrests, early-morning demolitions, weekend deportations — occur outside working hours, when physical filing counters are shut.
• The issue was tested in 2026, when the Supreme Court examined a plea for a Standard Operating Procedure on urgent after-hours listing and declined it, holding that a litigant apprehending imminent violation of liberty "is not required to physically approach a courtroom" because digital filing already permits round-the-clock access [1].

How digital infrastructure strengthens access

• 24x7 e-filing decouples institution of a case from court timings; eCourts Phase III (2023–27) targets digital and paperless courts and full digitisation of records, removing the physical file as a bottleneck [2].
• Video conferencing enables a judge, counsel and detenu to convene from any location; the e-Committee's Model Rules for Video Conferencing for Courts permit VC at all stages of judicial proceedings [3].
• VC links to jails and hospitals under Phase III make custodial and medical emergencies judicially reachable [2].
• e-Sewa Kendras extend these facilities to litigants lacking devices or connectivity, addressing the digital divide [2].

Safeguards preserving judicial discipline

• Strict gatekeeping: an emergency channel confined to genuine threats to life and liberty prevents its use for ordinary or tactical listings.
• Codified procedure: the Model VC Rules already prescribe decorum, recording and contempt safeguards, ensuring virtual sittings retain courtroom solemnity [3].
• Transparency: live-streaming rules and the National Judicial Data Grid, which publishes near-real-time pendency and disposal data, allow public scrutiny of how urgent listings are used [4][5].

Technology should therefore extend the court's reach, not relax its rigour. A calibrated, rule-bound emergency e-listing protocol — built on existing Phase III capacity and monitored through NJDG — would make constitutional protection continuously available, advancing SDG-16's promise of access to justice for all.