Lok Sabha Question No. 4731 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2025-03-28
Subject: Phases of e-Courts Project
Ministry: LAW AND JUSTICE
Asked by: Shri Ramvir Singh Bidhuri

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF LAW AND JUSTICE (DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE)

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION No. 4731 TO BE ANSWERED ON FRIDAY, THE 28 th  MARCH, 2025

## Phases of e-Courts Project

## 4731. Shri Ramvir Singh Bidhuri:

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

- (a) the steps taken by the Government in various phases under the project of setting up of e-Courts; and
- (b) the status of setting up of e-Courts in Delhi and other States of the country?

## 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)  to  (b): As  part  of  the  National  eGovernance  Plan,  the  eCourts  project  is  an integrated  Mission  Mode  Project  under  implementation  since  2007  for  the Information  and  Communication  Technology  (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'.  Phase  I (2011-2015)  of  the  e-Courts  project  aimed  at  providing  basic  hardware  and network  connectivity  to  the  Courts,  while  Phase  II  (2015-2023)  focused  on providing citizen centric services to the litigants and lawyers including, development  of  an  end-to  end  digital  system,  which  revolutionized  the  way public accessed the services provided by the judiciary.

Some of the major steps undertaken in Phase I, include:

- i. Computerisation of 14,249 District and Subordinate Courts, installation of Local Area Network (LAN) at 13,683 courts,
- ii. Hardware installation  in  13,436  courts  and  software  installed  in  13,672 courts.
- iii. Laptops were provided to 14,309 judicial officers and change management exercise was completed in all High Courts.
- iv. Over 14,000 Judicial Officers were trained in the use of UBUNTU-Linux Operating System
- v. More than 3900 court staff was trained in Case Information System (CIS) as System Administrators
- vi. Video  Conferencing  facility  was  operationalised  between  493  court complexes and 347 corresponding jails.

Under phase II of the eCourts Mission Mode Project, several e-initiatives on  part  of  the  Government  have  helped  facilitate  access  to  justice  using technology, which are detailed as under:

- i. Under the Wide Area Network (WAN) Project, connectivity was provided to 99.5% of total Court Complexes across the country, with 10 Mbps to 100  Mbps  bandwidth  speed.  The  Wide  Area  Network  (WAN)  Project under eCourts project is aimed at connecting all District and Subordinate court  complexes,  spread  across  the  country  using  various  technologies like Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), Optical Fibre Cable (OFC), Radio Frequency (RF), Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT), Submarine  Cable  etc.  This  forms  the  backbone  for  the  eCourts  project ensuring data connectivity in courts across the length and breadth of the country.
- 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. The litigants can access case information and more than 29.94 crore orders / judgments (as on date).

- iii. Live  Streaming  of  court  proceedings  has  started  in  the  High  Courts  of Gujarat, Gauhati, Orissa, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Patna, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Telangana, Meghalaya and Calcutta.
- iv. As  on  date,  the  district  and  subordinate  courts  have  heard  2,57,14,770 cases,  while  the  High  Courts  have  heard92,31,640  cases  (totaling  3.49 crore), using video conferencing system. The Supreme Court of India has held  9,94,054  hearings  (from  March'2020  till  Feb'2025)  through  video conferencing.
- v. eFiling  system  (version  3.0)  was  rolled  out  with  upgraded  features  for lawyers  to  access  and  upload  documents  related  to  the  cases  from  any location 24X7.
- vi. ePayment system was launched for hassle free transfer of fee, etc.
- vii. National  Service  and  Tracking  of  Electronic  Processes  (NSTEP)  was launched for technology enabled process serving and issuing of summons.
- viii. Judgment  Search  portal  was  started  with  features  such  as  search  by Bench, Case Type, Case Number, Year, Petitioner/ Respondent Name, etc. This facility is being provided free of cost to all.
- ix. To facilitate easy and hassle-free access to citizen-centric services, 1610 eSewa Kendras (Facilitation Centres) have been established across India.
- x. 28 Virtual Courts are functioning across 21 States/UTs for trying traffic related offences. Over 6.66 crore cases have been handled by these virtual courts  and  in  more  than  68  lakhs  cases,  online  fine  of  more  than  Rs. 714.99 crores have been realized.
- xi. Apart from this, as part of eCourts services, 7 platforms have been created to  provide  information  on  case  status,  cause  lists,  judgements  etc.  to lawyers/  litigants  through  SMS  Push  and  Pull,  Email,  multilingual

eCourts  services  Portal,  JSC  (Judicial  Service  centres),  Info  Kiosks, eCourts Mobile App for lawyers/litigants (2.87 crore downloads till date) and JustIS App for judges (21,105 downloads till date).

- xii. To bring in greater objectivity, consistency, transparency and speed, Case Information  System  (CIS)  version  4.0  software  has  been  implemented across the district and taluka courts across the country.

eCourts Phase III (2023-2027) has been approved by the Union 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,  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 etc., use of emerging  technologies  like  Artificial  Intelligence  and  its  subsets  like  Optical Character  Recognition  (OCR)  etc.  for  analysis  of  case  pendency,  forecasting future litigation, etc. Thus,  the efforts of the  Government  of  integrating technology  with  the  governance  has  facilitated  the  ease  of  seeking  justice  by making the Court experience convenient, inexpensive and hassle free to all the citizens  of  the  country.  As  on  date,  digital  infrastructure  has  been  provided  to 18,735 courts, as per details at Annexure I.

*****

## Annexure-I

Statement  referred  to  in  reply  of  Lok  Sabha  Unstarred  Question  No.  4731  for 28/03/2025 regarding Phases of e-Courts Project.

| S.No   | High Court                 | State                                                           |   Court Complexes |   Courts |
|--------|----------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------|-------------------|----------|
| 1      | Allahabad                  | Uttar Pradesh                                                   |               180 |     2222 |
| 2      | Andhra Pradesh             | Andhra Pradesh                                                  |               218 |      617 |
| 3      | Bombay                     | Dadra and Nagar Haveli                                          |                 1 |        3 |
| 3      | Bombay                     | Daman and Diu                                                   |                 2 |        2 |
| 3      | Bombay                     | Goa                                                             |                17 |       39 |
| 3      | Bombay                     | Maharashtra                                                     |               471 |     2157 |
| 4      | Calcutta                   | Andaman &Nicobar Islands                                        |                 4 |       14 |
| 4      | Calcutta                   | West Bengal                                                     |                89 |      827 |
| 5      | Chhattisgarh               | Chhattisgarh                                                    |                93 |      434 |
| 6      | Delhi                      | Delhi                                                           |                 6 |      681 |
| 7      | Gauhati                    | Arunachal Pradesh                                               |                14 |       28 |
| 7      | Gauhati                    | Assam                                                           |                74 |      408 |
| 7      | Gauhati                    | Mizoram                                                         |                 8 |       69 |
| 7      | Gauhati                    | Nagaland                                                        |                11 |       37 |
| 8      | Gujarat                    | Gujarat                                                         |               376 |     1268 |
| 9      | Himachal Pradesh           | Himachal Pradesh                                                |                50 |      162 |
| 10     | Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh | Union Territory of Jammu &Kashmir and Union Territory of Ladakh |                86 |      218 |
| 11     | Jharkhand                  | Jharkhand                                                       |                28 |      447 |
| 12     | Karnataka                  | Karnataka                                                       |               207 |     1031 |
| 13     | Kerala                     | Kerala                                                          |               158 |      484 |
| 13     | Kerala                     | Lakshadweep                                                     |                 1 |        3 |
| 14     | Madhya Pradesh             | Madhya Pradesh                                                  |               213 |     1363 |
| 15     | Madras                     | Puducherry                                                      |                 4 |       24 |
| 15     | Madras                     | Tamil Nadu                                                      |               263 |     1124 |
| 16     | Manipur                    | Manipur                                                         |                17 |       38 |
| 17     | Meghalaya                  | Meghalaya                                                       |                 7 |       42 |
| 18     | Orissa                     | Odisha                                                          |               185 |      686 |
| 19     | Patna                      | Bihar                                                           |                84 |     1142 |
| 20     | Punjab& Haryana            | Chandigarh                                                      |                 1 |       30 |
| 20     | Punjab& Haryana            | Haryana                                                         |                53 |      500 |
| 20     | Punjab& Haryana            | Punjab                                                          |                64 |      541 |
| 21     | Rajasthan                  | Rajasthan                                                       |               247 |     1240 |
| 22     | Sikkim                     | Sikkim                                                          |                 8 |       23 |
| 23     | Telangana                  | Telangana                                                       |               129 |      476 |
| 24     | Tripura                    | Tripura                                                         |                14 |       84 |
| 25     | Uttarakhand                | Uttarakhand                                                     |                69 |      271 |
|        | Total                      |                                                                 |              3452 |    18735 |