Lok Sabha Question No. 2998 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2024-12-13
Subject: Infrastructure at Court Complexes
Ministry: LAW AND JUSTICE
Asked by: Ms Sayani Ghosh

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF LAW & JUSTICE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 2998 TO BE ANSWERED ON FRIDAY, THE 13 TH DECEMBER, 2024

## Infrastructure at Court Complexes

## 2998. Ms SAYANI GHOSH:

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

- (a) whether it is a fact that court complexes across the country are lacking in basic facilities such as separate toilets for ladies, separate record rooms, library, and medical facilities, if so, the details thereof;
- (b) the measures undertaken by the Government and the funds released to States for improvement in the basic infrastructure in the last five years, State-wise;
- (c) whether it is true that only 27% of courtrooms have computers placed for video conferencing, if so, the steps taken by the Government in this regard; and
- (d) whether the Government is considering establishing the National Judicial Infrastructure Authority of India, if so, the progress made so far in this regard?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE (INDEPENDENT CHARGE) OF THE MINISTRY OF LAW AND JUSTICE; AND MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS

## (SHRI ARJUN RAM MEGHWAL)

(a) & (b): The primary responsibility of development of infrastructure facilities for judiciary rests with the State Governments. However, to augment the resources of the State and UT Governments, the Central Government has been implementing a Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) for the Development of Infrastructure Facilities for the district and subordinatejudiciary since 1993-94, by providing financial assistance to them in the prescribed fund-sharing pattern between the Centre and States. There are five components covered under the scheme, viz., court hall, residential units, lawyers' halls, toilet complexes and digital computer rooms for the convenience of lawyers and litigants. The data on state-wise availability of separate toilets for women, separate record rooms, library, and medical facilities etc. is not compiled centrally.

As on date Rs. 11,758 crore has been released under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) for the Development of Judicial Infrastructure since its inception in 1993-94. 21,977 court halls and 19,697 residential units have been constructed in the district and subordinate courts under the scheme as on date. Another, 3,165 Court Halls and 2,618 residential units are currently under construction. The details of the funds released to the State/UTs during last five years is Annexed.

The Department of Justice, Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India is also implementing the eCourts Project in a decentralized manner, through the respective High Courts in close coordination with the eCommittee of Supreme Court of India. In the last 5 years, (from financial year 2019-20 to 2024-25) Rs. 2457.31 crore has been released under the eCourts Mission Mode Project. The Government has taken the following measures/e-initiatives under the eCourts Project, to make justice accessible and available for all: -

- i. Under the Wide Area Network (WAN) Project, connectivity has been provided to 99.5% of total Court Complexes across India with 10 Mbps to 100 Mbps bandwidth speed.
- ii. National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) is a database of orders, judgments, and cases, created as an online platform under the eCourts Project. It provides information relating to judicial proceedings/decisions of all computerized district and subordinate courts of the country. Litigants can access case information and more than 27.64 crore orders / judgments (as on date).
- iii. Case Information Software (CIS) based on customized Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) has been developed. Currently CIS National Core Version 3.2 is being implemented in District Courts and the CIS National Core Version 1.0 is being implemented for the High Courts.
- iv. As part of eCourts project, 7 platforms have been created to provide real time information on case status, cause lists, judgements etc. to lawyers/Litigants through SMS Push and Pull (Over 4 lakhs SMS sent daily), Email (Over 6 lakhs sent daily), multilingual eCourts services Portal (35 lakh hits daily), JSC (Judicial Service centres) and Info Kiosks. In

addition, Electronic Case Management Tools (ECMT) have been created with Mobile App for lawyers (total 2.69 crore downloads till 31.10.2024) and JustIS app for judges (20,719 downloads till 31.10.2024).

- v. Virtual Courts in 21 States/UTs have been operationalized to handle traffic challan cases. Over 6 crore cases (6,00,29,546) have been handled by these virtual courts and in more than 62 lakhs (62,97,544) cases, online fine of more than Rs. 649.81 crores have been realized till 31.10.2024.
- vi. e-filing system (version 3.0) has been rolled out with upgraded features for lawyers to access and upload documents related to the cases from any location 24X7.
- vii. e-Filing of cases requires the option for electronic payment of fees which includes court fees, fines and penalties which are directly payable to the Consolidated Fund. Therefore ePayment system was launched for hassle free transfer of fee etc.
- viii. To bridge the digital divide, 1394 eSewa Kendras (Facilitation Centres) in District Courts and 36 eSewa Kendras (Facilitation Centres) in High Courts have been rolled out to provide citizen centric services to lawyers and litigants. It also assists the litigants in accessing online e-Courts services and acts as a saviour for those who cannot afford the technology or are located in far-flung areas. It also aids to addresses the challenges caused by illiteracy among citizens at large. It will provide benefits in saving time, avoidance of exertion, travelling long distances, and saving cost by offering facilities of e-filing of cases across the country, to conduct the hearing virtually, scanning, accessing e-Courts services etc.
- ix. National Service and Tracking of Electronic Processes (NSTEP) has been launched for technology enabled process serving and issuing of summons. It has currently been implemented in 28 States/ UTs.
- x. A new 'Judgment Search' portal has been started with features such as search by Bench, Case Type, Case Number, Year, Petitioner/ Respondent Name, Judge Name, Act, Section,

Decision: From Date, To Date and Full Text Search. This facility is being provided free of cost to all.

Further, eCourts Phase III (2023-2027) has been approved by the Cabinet in Sep'2023 at an outlay of ₹ 7,210 crore, which is over four times the funding for Phase II. The project envisages various new digital initiatives such as establishment of Digital and Paperless Courts that aim to bring court proceedings under a digital format in a court, digitization of court records both legacy records and pending cases, expansion of video conferencing facilities to courts, jails and hospitals, scope of online courts beyond adjudication of traffic violations, saturation of all court complexes with eSewa kendras, state of the art and latest Cloud based data repository for easy retrieval and supporting the digitized court records, software applications, live streaming, and electronic evidence, use of emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence and its subsets like Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis of case pendency, forecasting future litigation, etc. Thus, the efforts of the Government of integrating technology with the governance may prove to be a game changer in eCourts Phase III, ensuring ease of justice by making the Court experience convenient, inexpensive and hassle free to all the citizens of the country. Under eCourts Phase III, in financial year 2023-24, an amount of Rs. 825 crores were allotted and an expenditure of Rs 768.25 Cr (93.11%) was incurred. During FY 24-25, an allocation of Rs 1500 Cr. in the Budget Estimate (BE) has been received, out of which Rs. 1232.19 Cr has already been released to the various High Courts.

(c): Video conferencing (VC) emerged as the mainstay of the courts during the Covid lockdown period as physical hearings and normal court proceedings in the congregational mode were not possible. To bring uniformity and standardization in the conduct of VC, an overarching order was passed by the Supreme Court of India on 6th April 2020, which gave legal sanctity and validity to the court hearings done through VC. Further, VC rules were framed by a 5-Judge Committee of the Supreme Court, which were circulated to all the High Courts for adoption after local contextualization. These are available on the website of the eCommittee, Supreme Court of

India. All the High Courts, except High Court of Madras, have adopted Video Conferencing rules. The High Court of Madras has its own VC rules, similar to earlier circulated rules.

During Phase I of the eCourts Project, video conferencing facility has been operationalised between 488 court complexes & 342 corresponding jails. In eCourts Phase II of the project, one video conference equipment each has been provided to all Court Complexes including taluk level courts and funds have been sanctioned for additional VC equipment for 14,443 court rooms. Funds for setting up 2506 VC Cabins have been made. VC facilities are already enabled between 3240 court complexes and corresponding 1272 jails. Further, under Phase III, there is a provision for enhancing and upgrading the available infrastructure of Video Conferencing in 10200 establishments including 500 Jails, 700 District Government Hospitals and 9000 Courts at an amount of Rs. 228.48 crore.

(d): No such proposal is under consideration.

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## STATEMENT REFERRED TO PART (B) OF LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 2998 FOR REPLY ON 13.12.2024

STATE/UT-WISE RELEASE OF FUNDS DURING THE LAST FIVE YEARS UNDER THE CENTRALLY SPONSORED SCHEME (CSS)

(Rs. in crore)

| Sl No.   | Name of the State/Uts   |   Releases in 2019-20 |   Releasesin 2020-21 |   Releasesin 2021-22 |   Releasesin 2022-23 |   Releasesin 2023-24 |   Release in 2024-25 |
|----------|-------------------------|-----------------------|----------------------|----------------------|----------------------|----------------------|----------------------|
| 1        | A &NIslands             |                  0.17 |                 0.35 |                 0.46 |                 0    |                 0.49 |                 0    |
| 2        | Arunachal Pradesh       |                  2.69 |                 5    |                 4.09 |                32.38 |                 0    |                 6.24 |
| 3        | Andhra Pradesh          |                 20    |                10.28 |                 0    |                22.5  |                49.82 |                 0    |
| 4        | Assam                   |                 36.54 |                25    |                27.4  |                25    |                40    |                19.1  |
| 5        | Bihar                   |                 87.62 |                65.72 |                 0    |                 0    |                67.45 |                77.97 |
| 6        | Chandigarh              |                  0    |                 0    |                 0    |                 0    |                 0    |                 0    |
| 7        | Chhattisgarh            |                 19.83 |                 7.84 |                 0    |                60    |                 6.69 |                34.35 |
| 8        | Dadra&NH                |                  0    |                 0    |                 0    |                 0    |                 0    |                 0    |
| 9        | Daman &Diu              |                  0    |                 0    |                 0    |                 0    |                 0    |                 0    |
| 10       | Delhi                   |                 48.52 |                45    |                30    |                 0    |                 0    |                16.5  |
| 11       | Goa                     |                  4.06 |                 3.8  |                 3.2  |                25    |                 1.53 |                 3.52 |
| 12       | Gujarat                 |                 16.49 |                13.5  |                 0    |                 6.22 |                95.62 |                25.67 |
| 13       | Haryana                 |                 14.06 |                22    |                 0    |                 0    |                20.1  |                 0    |
| 14       | Himachal Pradesh        |                  5.72 |                 5.5  |                 0    |                 0    |                 6    |                13.62 |
| 15       | Jammu &Kashmir          |                 15    |                 6.65 |                20    |                12.6  |                12    |                31.5  |
| 16       | Jharkhand               |                 13.74 |                 9.05 |                 6    |                16.51 |                40.81 |                 0    |
| 17       | Karnataka               |                 44.04 |                29.72 |                27    |                82.01 |               133.16 |                18.43 |
| 18       | Kerala                  |                 15.82 |                13    |                50    |                 0    |                 7    |                15.89 |
| 19       | Ladakh                  |                  0    |                 0    |                 0    |                 0    |                 1.4  |                 5.5  |
| 20       | Lakshadweep             |                  0    |                 0    |                 0    |                 0    |                 0    |                 0    |
| 21       | Madhya Pradesh          |                 66.9  |                45.6  |                55    |               125    |               104    |                36.4  |
| 22       | Maharashtra             |                 61.09 |                23.11 |                18    |               100    |               119.53 |                95.16 |
| 23       | Manipur                 |                  9.66 |                 5    |                 0    |                12.85 |                 0    |                 3.71 |
| 24       | Meghalaya               |                 22.85 |                 7.71 |                28.02 |                50    |                33.72 |                33.79 |
| 25       | Mizoram                 |                  5.24 |                 5    |                 9.5  |                 0    |                 8.86 |                 3.77 |
| 26       | Nagaland                |                  3.42 |                 5    |                13.27 |                 0    |                 4.39 |                 2    |
| 27       | Odisha                  |                 35.69 |                 0    |                 0    |                31.49 |                30.88 |                34.48 |
| 28       | Puducherry              |                  3.31 |                 0    |                 0    |                 9.55 |                 0    |                 0    |
| 29       | Punjab                  |                 39.78 |                16.48 |                16.5  |                12.5  |                18.42 |                 0    |
| 30       | Rajasthan               |                 64.21 |                29.9  |                41.5  |                71.66 |                80.41 |                32.3  |
| 31       | Sikkim                  |                  2.78 |                 2.95 |                 0    |                 2.27 |                 2.7  |                 0    |
| 32       | Tamil Nadu              |                 38.71 |                18.17 |                35.66 |               133.85 |                 0    |                61.27 |
| 33       | Telangana               |                  5.65 |                16    |                 0    |                26.61 |                 0    |                 0    |
| 34       | Tripura                 |                 18.82 |                 7.74 |                 0    |                 0    |                40.49 |                20    |
| 35       | Uttar Pradesh           |                169.66 |               111    |               219    |                 0    |               102.96 |               174.12 |
| 36       | Uttarakhand             |                 28.5  |                 5.86 |                80    |                 0    |                13.75 |                46.14 |
| 37       | West Bengal             |                 61.43 |                31.07 |                 0    |                 0    |                18    |                22.22 |
| Total    | Total                   |                982    |               593    |               684.6  |               858    |              1060.18 |               833.65 |