Lok Sabha Question No. 84 (STARRED), answered on 2023-12-08
Subject: Affordable Justice to Common Man
Ministry: LAW AND JUSTICE
Asked by: Haji Fazlur Rehman

- (a) to (d):

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

## MINISTRY OF LAW & JUSTICE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

## LOK SABHA

STARRED QUESTION NO. †*84 TO BE ANSWERED ON FRIDAY, THE 08 TH  DECEMBER, 2023

## AFFORDABLE JUSTICE TO COMMON MAN

## †*84. SHRI HAJI FAZLUR REHMAN:

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

- (a) whether the Government proposes to provide affordable and accessible justice to the common man in the country;
- (b) if so, the details thereof;
- (c) whether the Government has formulated any plan in this regard; and
- (d) if so, the details thereof?

## ANSWER

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

(SHRI ARJUN RAM MEGHWAL)

- A statement is laid on the Table of the House.

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## STATEMENT  REFERRED  TO  IN  REPLY  TO  PARTS  (A)  TO  (D)  OF  LOK SABHA  STARRED  QUESTION  NO.  †*84  FOR  ANSWER  ON  08.12.2023 REGARDING 'AFFORDABLE JUSTICE TO COMMON MAN.

(a) to (d): The Government has taken several initiatives and initiated many schemes and programmes for providing affordable and accessible justice to the common man in the country which are as follows:

- i. National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) has been step up under The Legal Services  Authorities  (LSA)  Act,  1987  to  provide  free  and  competent  legal services to the weaker sections of the society as covered under Section 12 of the Act, to ensure that opportunities for securing justice are not denied to any citizen by reason of economic or other disabilities. The activities/programmes undertaken  by  Legal  Services  Authorities  include  Legal  Aid  and  advice;  Legal Awareness  Programmes;  Legal  Services/Empowerment  camps;  Legal  Services Clinics;  Legal  Literacy  Clubs;  Lok  Adalats  and  implementation  of  Victim Compensation Scheme.
- ii. Under the aegis of the Legal Services Act, Lok Adalats are organised to promote justice  on  a  basis  of  equal  opportunities.  For  this  purpose,  the  legal  services institutions  have  been  setup  from  the  Taluk  Court  level  to  the  Supreme  Court. National  Lok  Adalats  are  organized  simultaneously  in  all  Taluks,  Districts  and High Courts on a pre-fixed date. State Lok Adalats are organised by State Legal Services  Authorities  as  per  local  conditions  and  needs  and  Permanent  Lok Adalats are conducted on daily basis or as per the number of sittings decided per week.

Further in view of Covid, E-Lok Adalat was conceptualized which significantly improved access to justice for people who were otherwise unable to participate in the Lok Adalats. The first E-Lok Adalat was held on 27.06.2020 and since then E-Lok Adalats have been organized in 28 Stats / UTs, wherein 441.17 lakh cases were taken up and 76.16 lakh cases disposed of.

The details  of  the  case  disposed  off  in  these  Lok  Adalats  during  the  last  three years are at Annexure-I.

- iii. Besides, a scheme on Access to Justice titled 'Designing Innovative Solutions for Holistic Access to Justice in India' is implemented by the Government of India which aims to strengthen  Pre-Litigation  Advice  and  consultation  through  TeleLaw;  to  ensure  pan  -  India  dispensation  framework  to  deliver  Pro  Bono  legal Services  through  Nyaya  Bandhu  (Pro  Bono Legal  Services)  programme  and  to empower  citizens  through  Pan  India  Legal  Literacy  and  Legal  Awareness Programme. The Scheme embeds use of technology and developing contextualized  IEC  (Information,  Education  and  Communication)  material  in regional / local dialect to support its intervention and to achieve easy accessibility of legal services to the poor and weaker sections of the society.

The Tele-Law service seeks to connect the beneficiary with the lawyer via tele/ video  conferencing  facilities  available  at  the  Common  Service  Centers  and through  Tele-Law  Citizens  Mobile  Application.  As  on  30th  November  2023, Tele-Law services is available across 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats in 766 districts across 36 States and UTs and has rendered legal advice to 60,23,222 beneficiaries, which includes women, children, Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe etc.

The  Nyaya  Bandhu  platform  enables  seamless  connect  on  the  Nyaya  Bandhu Application  (available  on  Android/  iOS)  between  the  interested  Pro  Bono Advocates and registered beneficiaries entitled for free legal aid under section 12 of  Legal  Services Authorities Act,1987. As on 30th November, 2023, there are 10,629 Pro Bono advocates and 89 law schools have constituted Pro Bono Clubs to facilitate the culture of Pro bono among law students. All these services under the scheme are provided free of cost to all citizens of the weaker sections of the society.

- iv. The National Mission for Justice Delivery and Legal Reforms set up in August, 2011 has been pursuing a co-ordinated approach for phased liquidation of arrears and pendency  in judicial administration, which, inter-alia, involves better infrastructure for courts, increase in strength of subordinate judiciary, policy and legislative measures in the areas prone to excessive litigation, re-engineering of court  procedure  for  quick  disposal  of  cases  and  emphasis  on  human  resource development.

Under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) for the Development of Infrastructure Facilities for the Judiciary going on since 1993-94, court buildings and residential accommodations for judicial officers of the district and subordinate  judiciary  is  being  constructed.  Three  new  components  viz.,  digital computer room, lawyers' halls and toilet complexes have also been added under the  ambit  of  the  above  CSS.  The  scheme  has  been  extended  from  2021-22  to 2025-26 with a budgetary outlay of Rs. 9000 crores including central share of Rs. 5307.00 crore for this scheme. It has been ensured under the scheme guidelines that the States/UTs send project proposals which are disabled friendly and meet the requisite norms/accessibility standards as laid down by CPWD/Department of Empowerment  of  Persons  with  Disabilities, Ministry of Social Justice  & Empowerment.

- v. The  government  has  established  Fast  Track  Courts  for  dealing  with  cases  of heinous  crimes;  cases  involving  senior  citizens,  women,  children  etc.  As  of 31.10.2023,  848  Fast  Track  Courts  are  functional  for  heinous  crimes,  crimes against women, and children etc. Further, the central government has approved a scheme for setting up Fast Track Special Courts (FTSCs) across the country for the expeditious disposal of pending cases of Rape under IPC and crimes under POCSO Act. As of 31.10.2023,  a  total  of  758  FTSCs  including  412  exclusive POCSO  (ePOCSO)  Courts  are  functional  in  30  States/UTs  across  the  country which have disposed of more than 2,00,000 cases.
- vi. A path breaking initiative of the Government has been the eCourts Mission Mode Project which is a Central Sector Scheme being implementing in close association e-Committee, Supreme Court of India. It is under implementation for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) development of the District & Subordinate courts.Some of the digital initiatives taken by Government under the eCourts  Project  to  make  justice  accessible  and  available  to  common  man  is  at Annexure-II .

Recently, in September 2023, the Union Cabinet approved eCourts Phase-III with a budgetary outlay of Rs.7,210 crore, in which one of the important component is digitisation of entire court record - both legacy court records and pending cases at an estimated outlay of Rs. 2038.40 crore, that would pave the wave for end-to-end digital and paperless courts facilitated through saturation of all court complexes with  e-Sewa  Kendras  for  universalizing  e-filing  of  court  cases.  These  e-Sewa Kendras would help in bridging the digital divide amongst citizens particularly in the  rural  areas  to  function  as  one-stop  solution  kiosk  to  provide  free  of  cost services like e-filing, virtual hearing, etc., which would reduce the cost and time of the litigants and lawyers, thereby enhancing affordability and accessibility of justice delivery system.

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Annexrue-I

STATEMENT REFERRED  TO  IN  REPLY  TO  PARTS  (A)  TO  (D)  OF  LOK SABHA  STARRED  QUESTION  NO.  †*84  FOR  ANSWER  ON  08.12.2023 REGARDING 'AFFORDABLE JUSTICE TO COMMON MAN.

National  Lok Adalats

|                      | Pre-litigation Cases disposed of   | Pending Cases disposed of   | Total Cases disposed of   |
|----------------------|------------------------------------|-----------------------------|---------------------------|
| 2021                 | 72,06,294                          | 55,81,743                   | 1,27,88,037               |
| 2022                 | 3,10,15,215                        | 1,09,10,795                 | 4,19,26,010               |
| 2023 (upto Sept, 23) | 4,94,88,552                        | 1,06,83,225                 | 6,01,71,777               |

State  Lok Adalats

|                         | Pre-litigation Cases disposed of   | Pending Cases disposed of   | Total Cases disposed of   |
|-------------------------|------------------------------------|-----------------------------|---------------------------|
| 2021-22                 | 1,14,278                           | 4,18,251                    | 5,32,529                  |
| 2022-23                 | 94,939                             | 7,56,370                    | 8,51,309                  |
| 2023-24 (upto Sept, 23) | 42,352                             | 6,10,724                    | 6,53,076                  |

Permanent  Lok Adalats

| Years                   | Cases settled   |
|-------------------------|-----------------|
| 2021-22                 | 1,18,136        |
| 2022-23                 | 1,71,138        |
| 2023-24 (upto Sept, 23) | 1,10,412        |

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## Annexrue-II

## STATEMENT REFERRED  TO  IN  REPLY  TO  PARTS  (A)  TO  (D)  OF  LOK SABHA  STARRED  QUESTION  NO.  †*84  FOR  ANSWER  ON  08.12.2023 REGARDING 'AFFORDABLE JUSTICE TO COMMON MAN.

- a) Under the Wide Area Network (WAN) Project, connectivity has been provided to 99.4% (2977 out of earmarked 2992) of total Court Complexes across India.
- b) National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) is a database of orders, judgments, and cases, created as an online platform under the eCourts Project. Litigants can access case status information in respect of over 24.35 crore cases and more than 23.80 crore orders / judgments (as on 01.11.2023).
- c) Case  Information  Software  (CIS)  based  on  customized  Free  and  Open-Source Software (FOSS) has been developed.
- d) 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  (2,00,000  SMS  sent  daily),  Email  (2,50,000  sent daily),  multilingual  and  tactile  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  2.03  crore  downloads  till  30.09.2023)  and  JustIS  app  for  judges  (19,405 downloads till 31.10.2023).
- e) Video Conferencing has emerged as the viable medium for better and economical delivery  of  justice,  apart  from  ensuring  greater  transparency.  The  High  Courts heard 79,92,249 cases (totaling 2.88 crore) till 30.09.2023 using video conferencing system. The Hon'ble Supreme Court of India held 4,82,941 hearings through video conferencing till 15.05.2023.
- f) Live Streaming of court proceedings has been started in High Courts of Gujarat, Gauhati, Orissa, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Patna, Madhya Pradesh & Constitutional
- g) Bench  of  Hon'ble  Supreme  Court  of  India  thus  allowing  media  and  other interested persons to join the proceedings.
- h) 25  Virtual  Courts  in  20  States/UTs  have  been  operationalized  to  handle  traffic challan cases.
- i) New e-filing system (version 3.0) has been rolled out for the electronic filing of legal papers with upgraded features.
- j) To bridge the digital divide, 869 eSewa Kendras have been rolled out with the intention of facilitating  the  lawyer  or  litigant  who  needs  any kind  of  assistance ranging from information to facilitation and eFiling.
- k) A new 'Judgment Search' portal has been started free of cost to all.
- l) LED Display Message Sign Board System in the form of Justice Clockshavebeen installed. A total of 39 Justice Clocks in 25 High Courts has been installedso far.

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