Lok Sabha Question No. 52 (STARRED), answered on 2020-02-05
Subject: Multilingual App of the Supreme Court
Ministry: LAW AND JUSTICE
Asked by: Anil Firojiya, Mohanbhai Kalyanji Kundariya

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

## MINISTRY OF LAW AND JUSTICE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

## LOK SABHA

## STARRED QUESTION NO. 52

TO BE ANSWERED ON WEDNESDAY, THE 05 th   FEBRUARY, 2020

## MULTILINGUAL APP OF THE SUPREME COURT

## †*52  SHRI ANIL FIROJIYA:

SHRI MOHANBHAI KAYANJI KUNDARIYA :

Will the Minister of LAW AND JUSTICE be pleased to state:

- a) the time by which the new app 'Supreme Court Vidhik Anuvaad Software' launched by the Supreme Court of India is likely to become functional;
- b) the  number  of  languages  in  which  the  app  is  going  to  provide  updates about the legal proceedings;
- c) whether  the provisions are also in place to make  the  information accessible to the visually impaired;
- d) if so, the details thereof and if not, the reasons therefor; and
- e) whether any other new digitization initiative is being taken to increase the access to legal information by all the citizens of the country including print disabled citizens in near future and if so, the details thereof?

## ANSWER

MINISTER OF LAW AND JUSTICE, COMMUNICATIONS AND

## ELECTRONICS & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI RAVI SHANKAR PRASAD)

(a) to (e):

A statement is laid on the Table of the House.

## STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARTS (a) TO (e) OF THE LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION No. 52 DUE FOR ANSWER ON 05.02.2020.

- (a) With  a  view  to  enable  common  people  of  India  to  understand  the judgments  of  Supreme  Court  in  easy  manner  in  local  languages, SUVAS  (Supreme Court Vidhik Anuvaad Software) has been developed as a path breaking initiative by the Supreme Court of India in  collaboration  and  with  technical  support  from  the  Ministry  of Electronics  and  Information  Technology,  Government  of  India  aided by experts from IIT and IIIT.

This pilot development of SUVAS is at present in testing, training and refinement phase in 18 High Courts in the country. The work covers translating  judgments  related  to  cases  arising  under  the  appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of India in relation to the following subject categories:

1.  Labour matters;
2.  Rent Act matters;
3.  Land Acquisition and Requisition matters;
4.  Service matters;
5.  Compensation matters;
6.  Criminal matters;
7.  Family Law matters;
8.  Ordinary Civil matters;
9.  Personal Law matters;
10. Religious and Charitable Endowments matters;
11. Simple money and Mortgage matters;
12. Eviction under the Public Premises(Eviction) Act matters;
13. Land Laws and Agriculture Tenancies; and

## 14. Matters relating to Consumer Protection.

The  translation  is  functional  from  English  language  into  Hindi,  Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada,  Malayalam,  Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu languages.

Once  the  pilot  phase  of  testing,  training  and  refinement,  as  mentioned above, is completed, and the facility becomes functional, it would be rolled out fully in the relevant High Courts.

- (b) The Official Multilingual Mobile App of Supreme Court of India, provides updates about the legal proceedings in six languages i.e. English, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu.
- (c) & (d)   At  present  the  Official  Mobile  App  of  Supreme  Court  is  not  separately equipped with accessibility of information to visually impaired.
- (e) Through computerization of 16,845 District & Subordinate Courts and ICT enablement  under  the  eCourts  Project  Phase-II,  several  services  have been provided to litigants, lawyers and Judiciary which facilitate expeditious delivery of judicial services. eCourts services such as details of case registration, cause list, case status, daily orders & final judgments are  available  to  litigants  and  advocates  through  eCourts  web  portal, Judicial Service Centers (JSC) in all computerized courts, eCourts Mobile App,  email  service,  SMS  push  &  pull  services.  Integration  of  eCourts Services through Common Service Centers (CSCs) has been successfully completed. eCourt CNR Service has been enabled through Digital Seva Portal in all CSC locations across the country. National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) for District  &  Subordinate  Courts, created  as  an  online  platform under the Project, provides information relating to judicial proceedings/decisions of computerized district and subordinate courts of

the  country.  Currently,  all  stakeholders  including  Judicial  Officers  can access case status information in respect of over 12.97 crore pending and disposed cases and more than 11.15 crore orders / judgments pertaining to  these  computerized  courts.  Video  Conferencing  facility  has  been enabled between 3240 court complexes & 1272 corresponding jails.

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