30-Dec-2020: E-committee of Supreme court of India conferred with the Platinum award for Excellence in Digital Governance by the President of India

E-committee of Supreme court of India was conferred with the Platinum award for Excellence in Digital Governance  by the President of India in today’s online Digital India Award presentation ceremony.

E-Courts project visioned and implemented by the eCommittee, Supreme court of India along with Department of Justice and NIC( National Information Centre) is a Mission Mode Project of Government of India. The project has set an example of a successful e-governance project reaping rich dividends to the Litigants and Citizens of the country recording 232,42,83,034 (as on 14.12.2020) crore e-transactions with Average e-transactions for 343 days in 2020 is 67.06 lakhs per day (as per e-taal website), topping the mission mode project category.

Citizens can access Case status, cause list court orders anywhere, any time through e-courts services website, mobile app, SMS email services from the 3293 court complexes. Moreover, Citizens/litigants/Lawyers and  can get the details of  13.79 Cr cases, 13.12 Cr orders and judgments available online 24 X7 free of cost .During Pandemic 55,417,58 cases heard by courts through video conferencing using the digital infrastructure provided by the eCourts project pan India making Indian courts Global leader in conducting cases through VC.

E-committee of supreme court of India consists of Patron-in-Chief Mr. Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde, Chief Justice of India; Chairperson Dr Justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, Judge, Supreme Court of India ; Vice-Chairperson Mr. Justice R.C. Chavan, Former Judge, Bombay High Court and four members.

11-Dec-2020: 2927 Court complexes across country have been connected by a high-speed Wide Area Network (WAN) as against target of 2992 under e-Courts Project

As many as 2927 Court complexes across India have been connected so far by a high-speed Wide Area Network (WAN) under e-Courts Project. It has led to completion of 97.86 % sites out of 2992 sites conceived to be connected with high speed WAN under the project. Department of Justice (DoJ) along with BSNL is working relentlessly on connecting the remaining sites. Under e-Courts Project, one of the largest digital networks of the world was conceived by Department of Justice along with the e-Committee of the Supreme Court of India to connect the 2992 court complexes located all over India by a high-speed Wide Area Network (WAN) via different modes of connectivity such as Optical Fiber Cable (OFC), Radio Frequency (RF), Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) etc. In May 2018 the mandate of providing Managed MPLS VPN services to all these sites was entrusted to the BSNL, which has pan India presence with latest state-of-the-art technology and high-end telecom infrastructure and transmission equipment. The BSNL also has presence at all corners of India, including NE region, J&K, Uttarakhand, A&N Islands, etc.

Many courts under the e-Courts project are located in far flung areas where terrestrial cable cannot be used for providing connectivity. Such areas are termed as Technically Not Feasible (TNF) and in DoJ’s endeavour to bridge the digital divide; connectivity is being established at TNF sites using alternative means like RF, VSAT etc.  With persistent deliberations, meetings and coordination with different stakeholders including BSNL and the Courts, the Department has been able to reduce the total TNF sites from 58 in 2019 to 14 in 2020, thus leading to saving of public money as the cost of providing connectivity through alternative means like VSAT is much higher. Department of Justice has also decided to use the newly inaugurated submarine (under sea) cable for providing connectivity to 5 TNF sites in Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

In the COVID-19 pandemic scenario importance of connectivity becomes greater as suddenly courts are under huge pressure for on-line hearing of cases. The DoJ has therefore constituted a high powered committee with representatives from the BSNL, NIC, e-Committee etc. to review the bandwidth requirement in the changed scenario. The Department of Justice, along with the e-Committee of the Supreme Court of India has taken a major leap towards digital transformation and its success in leveraging digital technologies for transforming the Judiciary and providing access to justice to ordinary citizens is being appreciated at all levels.

As part of National e-Governance Plan, e-Courts Project is an Integrated Mission Mode Project under implementation since 2007 for the ICT development of the Indian Judiciary based on the ‘National Policy and Action Plan for Implementation of Information and Communication Technology in Indian Judiciary’.

The Government approved the computerization of 14,249 district & subordinate Courts under the e-Courts Phase I project ( 2007-2015).  The objective of the e-Courts project is to provide designated services to litigants, lawyers and the judiciary by universal computerization of district and subordinate courts in the country by leveraging Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for improved justice delivery. Envisaging further ICT enhancement through universal computerization of all the courts, the Phase II of the project was approved by the Cabinet in July 2015 with a cost of Rs 1670 crore under which 16,845 courts have been computerized.

8-Dec-2017: National Conference on E-Courts Project

The eCommittee, of the Supreme Court of India in association with the Department of Justice (DoJ) of the Government of India held a two day National Conference in which all the Central Project Coordinators of various High Courts connected with the ongoing National eCourts Project along with eCommittee Members, senior officers from DoJ, NIC and many other senior Judicial officers participated. The Conference was chaired by the Hon’ble Mr. Justice Madan B. Lokur the Judge-In-Charge of eCommittee and co-Chaired by Dr. Alok Srivastava, Secretary DoJ. The Conference focused on the progress, sharing of best practices, experiences, important issues and emerging challenges under the Project.

The eCourts Mission Mode Project (Phase I 2010-15; Phase II 2015-19) is a national eGovernance project for ICT enablement of district and subordinate courts of the country. It is being implemented by the Government of India with a total outlay of 1670 crores (Phase II). The major objectives of the Project are to make whole judicial system ICT enabled by putting in place adequate and modern hardware and connectivity; automation of workflow management in all courts; electronic movement of records from taluka/trial to appeal courts; installation of video conferencing (VC) facility and recording of witness through Video Conferencing; connecting all courts in the country to the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) through WAN and additional redundant connectivity; citizen centric facilities such as electronic filing, e-payment and use of mobile applications in all courts; touch screen based kiosks in each court complex, full computerisation of State and district level judicial and service academies and centres.

Specific targets set under the Project include: computerization of all the courts (around 20400) and DLSA and TLSC; WAN and cloud connectivity in 3500 court complexes; full Installation and use of Video Conferencing facility at 3000 Court Complexes and 1150 prisons; charting out key identified citizen services like electronic filing, daily orders, delivery of decrees, online case status in all the district courts etc.

The best practices of High Courts of Punjab & Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh were shared by the CPCs of these States during the Conference. The Hon’ble Judge in-Charge while expressing satisfaction on the progress called for continued sincere efforts needed be made to achieve the remaining targets. Secretary (Justice) Dr. Alok Srivastava stressed the importance of definite timelines and better coordination at the High Court Level. The Secretary later launched e-Filing software developed by eCommittee, for district courts and High Courts. e-Filing software has the facility to e-sign uploaded documents. Through e-Filing software, registered advocates and registered parties or persons will be able to file their cases in the district courts. Further, a demonstration was made by NIC Pune of a new version of Case Information System CIS 3.0. In the new improved version, various tools relating to court management, case management and judicial planning and monitoring will also be shown. The new version of CIS will be released and deployed soon.

Use of National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) for Judicial planning and monitoring, generating various statistical reports for administration and policy decisions, was demonstrated. A need was expressed that management users may be created for principal district judges as well as for portfolio judges.

Success story of recently launched mobile application (eCourts services) was shared with the participants. It was brought to the notice of all the concerns that besides advocates, institution, organizations, common litigants is using the services of mobile app successfully. The mobile app has reached close to the figure of 3 lakhs downloads.

Automated Mailing Service recently launched for the benefit of litigants and lawyers, was well applauded. It was noted that all the developments of all the cases relating to particular litigants and lawyers, are communicated by a single mail with the help of Automated Mailing Service. Apart from this, cause list services, case status services, next dates, filing registration scrutiny and objectives are some important events where automated mails are being sent to the registered mail address to the litigants and lawyers. Within short time, the figures of events sent through mails has reached to 40 Lakhs.

SMS push service has been widely used across the country by the litigants and lawyers. This SMS service is more popular in remote areas where mobile phones without internet facility, are used by the litigants and lawyers. Similarly, SMS pull service is made operational recently. Anybody can send CNR no. to 9766899899 and in response, he would get the case status.

It was well appreciated that as per the data available on eTaal, number of electronic transactions, transacted under eCourts Project are very high and are amongst top 5 performers with number of electronic transactions being more than 40 crores.