Transforming India's justice delivery process - The e-courts project

Introduction - 

1. India has emerged as a pioneer in digitization of its judicial systems such as its courts, tribunals. etc. As part of the e-governance plan, the e-courts mission was launched in 2007 in collaboration with the e-committee of the supreme court and the Department of Justice (DOJ). The e-courts mission was launched to fulfill 4 main goals – 1) To increase access to justice, 2) To enhance judicial productivity, transparency and processes, 3) To make Indian courts digitized, 4) To enhance judicial productivity qualitatively and quantitatively. Phase I and Phase II of the mission was completed till 2024 and the Phase III of the same is launched and approved by the cabinet with an allocation of Rs. 1500 Crores.

2. As of today, the High Courts and Supreme Court of India have completely adopted the digital infrastructure in various domains be it hybrid hearings, e- filing, viewing case status, maintaining digital court records, or court fee payment. The courts have also adopted Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at various places. For instance, the Apex court has adopted a software called Supreme Court Vidhik Anuvaad Software (SUVAS). This is a machine assisted translation tool trained by AI that translates judicial documents into various vernacular languages. The Indian judiciary is currently examining the scope of using blockchain for storing and sharing of important judicial documents.

Phases of the e-courts project 

1. Phase 1 of the e-courts mission was implemented between 2011 and 2015. This being the pilot phase of revamping Indian judiciary, the primary focus was on setting a base for digitisation. The district and taluka court were equipped with computers, wires, LAN cables, and video conferencing facilities. A Case information Software (CIS) was also operationalised during this phase. A financial outlay of Rs. 935 crore was passed for completion of the Phase 1.

2. Under this phase 14,249 District and Subordinate courts were digitised. LAN cables were installed at 13,683 courts, hardware provided in 13,436 courts and software was installed in 13,672 courts. Laptops were provided to 14,309 judicial officers and change management exercise completed in all High Courts. Over 14,000 Judicial Officers were trained in the use of UBUNTU- Linux Operating System. More than 3900 court staff were trained in Case Information System (CIS) as System Administrators. Video Conferencing facility was operationalised between 493 court complexes & 347 corresponding jails.

3. Phase 2 of the e-courts mission was implemented between 2015 and 2023 with a financial outlay of Rs. 1670 crores. The focus of Phase 2 was to undertake steps and initiatives to make access to justice easier and available for all through digitisation of various legal processes such as filing of cases and payment of court fee, etc. This in turn enhanced efficiency, effectiveness and transparency in judicial processes. Phase 2 of this mission also witnessed a worldwide pandemic i.e. Covid 19 which accelerated the digitisation.

4. By end of this phase, nearly 95% of Indian courts had achieved close to 100Mbps of bandwidth speed. A National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) was introduced which is an online database of all orders, judgements, and cases across all courts, tribunals, appellate. The Phase-II of the project has put great emphasis on service delivery to the litigants, lawyers and other stakeholders for which 7 platforms also have been created that provide real time case update to litigants through SMS Push and Pull (2,00,000 SMS sent daily), Email (2,50,000 sent daily), multilingual and tactile courts services Portal (35 lakh hits daily), JSC (Judicial Service centres) and Info Kiosks. The Indian courts have heard more than 3 crore cases on Video Conferencing up until 2023.

5. Phase 3 of the e-courts mission has already been approved by the cabinet for 2023-2027 with a total financial outlay of Rs. 7210 Crores. The main objective of Phase 3 is to make a unified technological platform for the entire judiciary which will make interactions between litigants and courts paperless, digital and online. It will also focus on digitising the legacy records and pending cases on an indigenously developed e-sewakendra. Paperless Courts will bring court proceedings under a digital format leading to transparency and accountability in the Indian Judiciary and it will also lead to speedy disposal of cases. Video Conferencing (VC) facilities are to expanded beyond the scope of traffic challans. In conclusion, Phase III of the e-courts mission will revolutionise the way judiciary works in India.

Resources under the e-courts project 

1. National Judicial Data Grid - 

The National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) is a substantive project developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC). NJDG is a database of all date relating to 1) orders, decrees, decisions, judgements of pending and decided cases, appeals, petition, etc ; 2) number of cases instituted across all courts, appellate, tribunals, etc ; 3) pendency and disposal of cases ; 4) status and breakup of cases in 4 main categories namely criminal, civil, pre-trial, total cases ; 5) breakup on the basis of party i.e. women, elderly, etc. and 6) data on the age of cases pending. An electronic board that displays the same information as NJDG is also placed at the entrance of every High Court. This is knows as the justice clock.

NJDG Platform was launched in the year 2015 by Justice Madan B. Lokar (Supreme Court of India) which allows administrative judges to monitor, manage, identify the current status of Indian courts. It also allows for further planning to reduce pendency in courts and effective management of courts and cases. It automatically updates itself every day since it is connected to the Case Information System (CIS). NJDG is empowered to publish reports on types of cases, number of pending cases, number of judgements given in a day, number of adjournments given in day, number of cases where judgements were reserved, state wise breakup of cases, judge wise breakup of cases, etc. NJDG has wide applications such as court management, case management, policy planning and digital scrutiny.

2. Case Information System

The Case Information (CIS) was developed under the Phase 1 of the e-courts mission that allows citizens to view the current status of pending cases. CIS is bases on a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) which was developed indigenously by NIC. FOSS implies that content made under this is free for use without any copyright restrictions. 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.

3. Real time information providers

As of today there are 7 softwares being used by Indian courts to communicate listing, case number, room number and the court to the lawyer/litigant. It works on Push and Pull system which sends these updates through SMS, email, WhatsApp. These updates provide transparency between the courts, lawyers and the clients. It acts as a automatic information kiosk that provides real time update to the recipient. As of today 2,00,000 SMSs are sent out daily, 2,50,000 emails are sent daily, 35,00,000 hits daily on info kiosks and e-courts app. These SMSs not only inform the listing of a matter but inform of successful filing or payment of court fees.

4. E-filing

Before the advent of e-courts mission, filing in cases was done through offline mode. There were specific places/offices where lawyers and para-legals would line up in long queues to submit the files that were to be put on record. But now the same is done from the comfort of our offices or homes. The e-filing portal has reduced the filing time from 1 hour to just a matter of 3 to 4 minutes. It allows for filing of all legal documents such as Vakalatnama, eSigning, online video recording of oath, filing of multiple IAs, misc. applications, petition, revisions, quashing, etc. E-filing portal is also equipped with the Delhi High Court rules and regulations which allows the litigants to view common objections if any within 24 hours. Currently the courts are using e-filing 3.0 and all high courts of the country have adopted the draft rules for e-filing.

5. E-court pay

Court fees is the fee which is to be deposited to the court before the beginning of the proceedings and at the time of filing of the suit. Today, the E-court fee portal is launched that allows for payment of court fees, fines penalties digitally. With a dedicated payment portal it generates a number that is associated with the plaint at the time of filing of suit. The e-court fee payment has been adopted by 20 High Courts already.

6. National Service and Tracking of Electronic Processes (NSTEP)

National Service and Tracking of Electronic Processes (NSTEP) has been launched for technology enabled process serving and issuing of summons. A GPS enabled device is introduced and is handed over to the Bailiff for service of summons. This will lead to greater transparency and speedy delivery of processes. It will also provide real time update of service of summons while tracking of geographical coordinates of the process server at the time of serving.

7. Secure, Scalable & Sugamya Website as a Service (S3WAAS) Website

As part of the Digital India campaign, S3WAAS allows for making government websites based on safe and secure cloud network and pre-set templates. The e-courts website is based on this S3WAAS platform. It allows for conversion of the website into local and regional languages. It also includes assistive tech facilities for divyang users. All other court websites are being upgraded from the existing system to the S3WAAS platform which are secure, scalable and accessible.

8. IEC and Training

As part of the Information, Education and Communication (IEC) campaign, the e-courts committee has been taking initiatives to educate lawyers, judicial officers and public related to the technological advancements in the courts. As of today these initiatives have been conducted covering nearly 3,60,993 stakeholders including Judges, Courts staff, Advocates and judicial officers. 25 Master Trainers have been trained in each High Court who in turn have already trained 5409 Master Trainers across the country. These master trainers have in turn taught e-filing and using of e-court services to thousands of lawyers and across the country. E-committee of the Supreme Court is also regularly conducting webinars for the same and has been uploading the same on their YT channels and websites.

9. Supreme Court Vidhik Anuvaad Software (SUVAS)

SUVAS is a machine assisted translation tool trained by Artificial Intelligence (AI) that allows for inclusion of regional languages in judicial processes. In the year 2023, Supreme Court began to translate its older judgements, orders and documents into regional languages such as Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati, telegu, etc. SUVAS has already translated over 22000 judgements in Hindi, over 3500 in Punjabi, over 1000 in Gujarati and over 1800 in Kannada. By the end of 2023, SUVAS had already translated 31,000 rulings in regional languages. Though these rulings carry a disclaimer at the start that relieves SC of all mistakes in it.

While developing the SUVAS software, SC encountered a problem which was lack of unified vocabulary for legal jargons in regional languages which led to wide inaccuracies in the translation process. Pertaining to this the Bar Council of India has started work on developing a legal vocabulary.

10. Supreme Court Portal for Assistance in Court’s Efficiency (SUPACE)

SUPACE, developed by the e-committee of the Supreme court, is an AI enabled assistive tool that aims to enhance the efficiency of Indian courts using artificial Intelligence. It is powered to help judges and researchers to work on cases by extracting relevant information, finding judgements, reading case files and drafting court documents. The entire software trains itself by learning patterns every time a prompt or action is made, thereby becoming smarter and more specific.

SUPACE allows judges and researchers to convert text files into PDF files then the chatbot can be used to ask questions from the text such as which para talks about the law, etc. The fact extraction system highlights relevant facts or the judgements quoted or submissions made. An integrated word processor allows for making notes or drafting legal documents and finally a dashboard is present that shows number of cases worked upon, number of tasks to be done by a team or an individual.

Conclusion -

The digitisation of courts in India is undoubtedly redefining the judicial landscape of India and improving judicial accessibility in India. The e-courts mission has ensured greater transparency, efficiency and faster justice. India is perhaps one of the very first few countries who are leading hybrid courts and making significant efforts towards digitisation of the justice delivery system. Nonetheless, the digitisation process is accompanied by a mirage of privacy, security and technological concerns which have to be addressed before reaching the stage of complete electronic courts.