Hello Betamax, Three hundred years. That's how long it would take India to clear its current backlog of 54 million court cases. Courts remain severely understaffed in this nation of over 1.4 billion people. Adjournments, slow hearings, and outdated paperwork-driven processes also add to the pain, turning even simple cases into decade-long battles. Utkarsh Saxena, co-founder and CEO of legaltech company Adalat AI, believes "justice is a logistics problem." Across India and Southeast Asia, courts remain buried under mountains of paperwork, manual filing systems, and administrative bottlenecks that turn justice into a painfully slow process. In many Indian district courts, judges continue to handwrite witness depositions because stenographers are unavailable. In some instances, records must be rewritten simply because another judge cannot decipher the handwriting. In today's premium piece, I explore how legal AI - from Anthropic's Claude-powered assistants to courtroom transcription tools and paperless case-management platforms - is starting to modernize the justice system and reshape how lawyers, litigants, and courts operate across Asia. On top of that, we have a scoop from India. Droom is looking to raise between US$20 million and US$50 million as the online automobile marketplace pushes toward profitability this fiscal year. Samreen Ahmad, Journalist |
