A top Bangladesh official has lauded the use of live streaming of court proceedings, virtual hearings and technology in the Supreme Court of India and told Chief Justice DY Chandrachud that he is keeping a close watch on the Indian Supreme Court.

According to sources, Chief Justice Chandrachud was also told that Bangladesh wants to follow the Indian Supreme Court in these matters.

Speaking at the two-day conference ‘South Asian Constitutional Courts in the Twenty-First Century: Lessons from Bangladesh and India’, Chief Justice Chandrachud said both India and Bangladesh share a tradition of constitutional and judicial systems whose main objective is to ensure stability and both Nations recognized their constitutions as “living documents”.

Judges of Bangladesh’s top court attended the conference, which was joined by several jurists, senior lawyers and government leaders, including Law Minister Anisul Haq.

Chief Justice Chandrachud said, “Our shared tradition aims to ensure stability, but when stability is desired, stability should never be confused with stagnation.”

Chief Justice Chandrachud said, “We believe that our Constitutions are living documents. The Constitutions of Bangladesh and India declare that they are ‘given by the people to themselves’ as citizens of sovereign nations.”

Apart from Chief Justice Chandrachud, Supreme Court judges Justice Aniruddha Bose and Justice Dipankar Dutta were also present during the conference.

Chief Justice Chandrachud said the Indian and Bangladeshi court systems should encourage increased practice of arbitration for dispute resolution by excluding “adversarial litigation”.

“Today, we need to ensure that we pay attention to the needs of our society, ensure social development and social progress by allowing our marginalized groups to come into the mainstream,” the Chief Justice said. The era was going through a period of change.

In her address, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that her government has made the judiciary completely independent and separated it from the administration by allocating a separate budget for it.