The Supreme Court of Pakistan has launched an online portal enabling citizens and litigants to obtain digitally verified copies of judgments and orders without visiting court offices or filing manual requests, marking a significant step forward in the judiciary’s ongoing digital transformation agenda. The digital certified copy portal has been approved by the Supreme Court Registrar and integrated into the court’s existing public facilitation portal, with an official circular issued to formally notify users of the new service across Pakistan’s legal community.
Under the new system, applicants can submit online requests for digitally verified copies of any judgment or order issued by the Supreme Court, eliminating a procedural chain that previously required physical visits to the court’s copy branch, manual application submissions, waiting periods while staff located and prepared the requested documents, and ultimately in-person collection. For litigants based outside Islamabad, particularly those in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta, and smaller cities and towns across the country, the manual process was especially burdensome and expensive, requiring either personal travel to the federal capital or the engagement of a local agent or lawyer to handle the request on their behalf. Even for those based in Islamabad, the process involved multiple trips and uncertain waiting times that created unnecessary friction for individuals and legal professionals trying to access documents that are, in principle, public records.
The digital certified copy portal eliminates that friction by reducing the entire process to an online submission, with the verified copy returned to the applicant digitally in a format that carries the same legal standing as a manually issued certified copy. The integration of the portal into the Supreme Court’s existing public facilitation infrastructure means that applicants who are already familiar with the court’s online systems do not need to navigate a new or separate platform, reducing the adoption barrier and making the transition from manual to digital processes as smooth as possible. Court officials described the initiative as part of broader efforts to modernise judicial services, expand technology-driven access to justice, and improve public facilitation across the court system, while also reducing the administrative workload on court staff who have historically processed large volumes of manual copy requests alongside their other responsibilities.
The practical benefits extend beyond individual litigants. Legal professionals, law firms, academic researchers, journalists, and policy advocates who regularly require access to Supreme Court judgments will all benefit from a faster, more reliable, and geographically unrestricted access mechanism. In a country where the judiciary handles millions of cases and the Supreme Court’s judgments carry precedential significance across lower courts, easier access to verified copies of those judgments strengthens the broader legal ecosystem, making it more feasible for lawyers and researchers across Pakistan to engage with current jurisprudence without being constrained by the physical distance between their locations and the Supreme Court building in Islamabad.
The launch builds on the foundations laid by the National Judicial Policy Making Committee’s National Guidelines on Artificial Intelligence in Courts issued in April 2026, which positioned technology as a central pillar of Pakistan’s judicial modernisation strategy and called for AI-enabled support across case management, legal research, and document processing. The digital certified copy portal represents one of the first concrete citizen-facing services to emerge from that policy direction, translating what had been a governance commitment into a functional tool that Pakistanis can use today. It also arrives alongside the Supreme Court’s broader push for e-filing, video-link hearings, and real-time case tracking, painting a picture of an institution that has moved meaningfully beyond aspirational digitization rhetoric toward the practical delivery of services that change the day-to-day experience of engaging with Pakistan’s highest court.
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