Department of Justice administers various schemes for making the Indian Judicial System robust and well equipped, says Kiren Rijiju

New Delhi : Department of Justice has been administering various schemes for making the Indian Judicial System robust and well equipped. The expenditure made under the different schemes of the Department during the last five years is as follows:

(in Rs. crore)

*The scheme ceased to be a scheme component.

As part of the National eGovernance Plan, the eCourt project is an integrated Mission Mode Project under implementation since 2007 for ICT development of the Indian Judiciary based on the “National Policy and Action Plan for Implementation of Information and Communication Technology in the Indian Judiciary”. The e-Court Integrated Mission Mode Project was launched with the objective of improving access to justice using technology. The Phase I of eCourts was concluded in 2015 in which 14,249 Court sites were computerized. Phase II of the project started in 2015 with an outlay of Rs. 1,670 crore out of which a sum of Rs. 1668.43 crore has been released by the Government. Under Phase II, 18,735 District & Subordinate courts have been computerised so far.

• As part of WAN project, connectivity to 2972 of 2992 court complexes (99.3% sites) have been provided with 10 Mbps to 100 Mbps bandwidth speed using various technologies like OFC, RF, VSAT.
• Case Information Software (CIS) based on customized Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) has been developed.
• Using National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), developed under the eCourts Project with elastic search technology, lawyers and litigants can access case status information of 20.86 crore cases and more than 18.02 crore orders/judgments.
• Citizen centric services are provided through 7 platforms or service delivery channels for providing real time information on case status, cause lists, judgements etc. to lawyers/litigants. The services are SMS Push and Pull (2,00,000 SMS sent daily), Email (2,50,000 sent daily), multilingual and tactile eCourts services Portal (35 Lakh hits daily), Judicial Service centres (JSC), Info Kiosks, eCourts Mobile App for lawyers/litigants (with 79.65 lakh downloads till 30th April 2022) and JustIS app for judges (17,369 downloads till 4th July 2022).
• As on 04.07.2022, there are 20 Virtual Courts in 16 States / UTs to try traffic offences. These courts have heard more than 1.69 crore cases and realised Rs. 271 crore in fines.
• Using Video conferencing, the District and High courts have heard District courts heard 1,28,76,549 cases while the High Courts heard 63,76,561 cases (totalling 1.92cr) till 30.04.2022 using video conferencing. The Supreme Court held2,61,338 hearings till 13.06.2022 since the beginning of lockdown period. VC facilities have also been operationalized between 3240 Courts and corresponding 1272 Prisons. Mobile e-courts van equipped with Wi-Fi and computers for video conferencing for speedy disposal of cases have been started in Telangana and Uttarkhand. Live Streaming of video conferencing of proceedings has been started in High Courts of Gujarat, Orissa, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Patna and Madhya Pradesh thus allowing media and other interested persons to join the proceedings.
• An efiling system (version 3.0) has been rolled out for the electronic filing of legal papers with advanced features like online submission of Vakalatnama, eSigning, online video recording of oath, online payment, filing of multiple IAs/application, Portfolio Management and bilingual mode etc. Online payment of court fees, fines, penalties and judicial deposits has also been initiated through https://pay.ecourts.gov.in.
• To make justice delivery inclusive and to mitigate handicaps caused by digital divide, eSewa Kendras have been rolled out to provide e-filing services to lawyers and litigants.
• A ‘Judgment & Order Search’ portal has been inaugurated for the convenience of its stakeholders in searching judgments easily by providing a repository for Judgments and Final Orders of the High Courts at https://judgments.ecourts.gov.in.
• National Service and Tracking of Electronic Processes (NSTEP) has been developed for technology enabled process serving and issuing of summons. It has currently been implemented in 28 High Courts.
• A new website has been launched for the Department of Justice that meets Hon’ble PM’s vision of Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas and Sabka Nyaya. This website is one in the series of websites to be launched on S3WaaS platform of all the courts across India for which Department of Justice has provisioned funds amounting to Rs. 4.28 crores. An exclusive website for e-Committee has also been launched on the same platform.

The primary responsibility of development of infrastructure facilities for judiciary rests with the State Governments. To augment the resources of the State Governments, the Union Government has been implementing a Centrally Sponsored Scheme for Development of Infrastructure Facilities in district and subordinate courts by providing financial assistance to State Governments / UTs in the prescribed fund sharing pattern. The scheme is being implemented since 1993-94. It covers the construction of court buildings and residential accommodations for judicial officers of district and subordinate judiciary. The scheme has been extended from 2021-22 to 2025-26 with a budgetary outlay of Rs. 9,000 crore including central share of Rs. 5,307 crore. Besides the construction of court halls and residential quarters, the scheme now also covers the construction of lawyers’ halls, digital computer rooms and toilet complexes in the district and subordinate courts.

This information was given by Minister for Law and Justice, Shri Kiren Rijiju in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.