Contents
Overview............................................................................................................. 1
Objectives........................................................................................................... 2
Case information System (CIS), Application for District Courts and High Courts 3
Key features of CIS............................................................................................. 4
Use of Open Source Technology.........................................................................4
Platforms for Service Delivery............................................................................ 4
e-Courts Portal............................................................................................... 4
Mobile App.......................................................................................................... 5
SMS push............................................................................................................ 5
SMS pull.............................................................................................................. 6
Automated e-Mails.............................................................................................. 6
Touch screen kiosks and service centre.............................................................6
ePayment........................................................................................................... 6
e-Filing................................................................................................................ 7
National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG)......................................................................7
National Service and Tracking of Electronic Processes (NSTEP).........................8
Virtual Courts...................................................................................................... 9
Integration with other systems.........................................................................11
UMANG........................................................................................................ 11
Common Service Centres............................................................................ 12
Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS)...............................................12
Stakeholders..................................................................................................... 14
Court staff and judicial officers....................................................................14
Court staff.................................................................................................... 14
Court staff members working as system administrators: Example of capacity
building........................................................................................................ 14
Judicial officers............................................................................................. 15
JustIS Mobile App......................................................................................... 15
Services to Stakeholders.................................................................................. 15
Courts Brief
Overview
e-Courts, a Mission Mode Project of the Government of India, has set an example of
successful e-Governance project reaping rich dividends to litigants and citizens of the
country. The e-Courts project was conceptualized on the basis of the “National Policy
and Action Plan for Implementation of Information and Communication Technology
(ICT) in the Indian Judiciary – 2005”, submitted by e-Committee (Supreme Court of
India), with a vision to transform the Indian judiciary by ICT enablement of courts.
The project is implemented at High Courts and all the District and Subordinate Courts
of the country. The Phase-I of the project was approved in 2010 and enabled the
computerization of 14249 District and Subordinate Courts by 2015. During this phase,
ICT infrastructure improvements were completed. ICT infrastructure, covering
computer hardware, Local Area Network (LAN), Wide Area Network (WAN), UPS
and power backups, was provided to all District and Subordinate Courts. Phase –II of
the project, which envisions further enhancements, was commissioned in 2015 for a
period of four years. This phase lays great emphasis on service delivery to litigants,
lawyers and other stakeholders. It involves the creation of improved ICT infrastructure
in Courts, Videoconferencing etc., and ensures optimum automation of judicial and
administrative processes.
The project has set up a consolidated nationwide judicial data warehouse with real
time updations and availability, which is being used to provide citizen-centric services
and inputs for policy making and decision support to the management.
Objectives
• To provide efficient and time bound citizen-centric service delivery
• To develop, install and implement decision support system in courts
• To automate judicial processes to provide transparency in accessibility of
information to its stakeholders
• To enhance judicial productivity both qualitatively and quantitatively
• To make justice delivery system affordable, accessible, cost effective, predictable,
reliable and transparent
• To make policy for managing caseloads for effective court management and case
load management.
• To provide interoperability and compatibility with systems like Interoperable
Criminal Justice System.
• Installation of video conferencing facility and recording of witness through VC
• Connecting all courts in the country to National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG)
• Providing citizen-centric services through various platforms for service delivery
such as web portal, Mobile App, judicial service centre, kiosks, SMS, automated
emails etc.
NOTE: *The figures are up to September 2021
Case information System (CIS), Application for District Courts and High
Courts
India is a multilingual country, with 22 official languages and 12 scripts. The benefits
can reach common man only when software tools are made available in people’s own
language. As e-Courts project is implemented at the last mile court i.e., the District
and Taluka Courts, the software is developed in bilingual mode to suit the localization
requirements. Services to litigants are available in local language over touch screen
kiosks, installed at the courts or over query counter available at every court complex.
The application is implemented in both English and local language scripts like
Devanagari, Kannada, Tamil, and Gujarati etc.
It is not only on the linguistic part, but every High Court has a different set of rules
and procedure to administer and manage its subordinate judiciary. Keeping in view
the differing procedures from one High Court to another, the software is developed as
a single product catering to such diversified requirements of the country. The
mechanism has helped achieve central citizen interface in the form of eCourts portal,
Mobile App and National Judicial Data Grid.
e-Courts project adopts the core-periphery approach of software development. The
core part of the software is developed centrally, and flexibility is provided to the
respective High Courts to develop the periphery part. The Core CIS application caters
to complete functionalities of courts, viz. Case Filing, Case Registration, Case
Scrutiny, Case Listing, Court Proceedings, Case Disposal, Process Generation, Lok
Adalat etc.
Currently, CIS National Core 3.2 is implemented at District and Subordinate Courts,
and CIS National Core 1.0 is implemented at High Courts of India.
Key features of CIS
• Use of Free and Open Source (FOSS) technology
• Unique 16 character Case Number Record (CNR) for each case in the country
• Dashboard for users and report generation mechanism
• Enabled with National Masters
• Electronic process generation with QR Code
• eFiling and ePay integration
• Integrated Lok Adalat/ Mediation Module
• In-built templates for orders and judgments
• Integrated with ICJS
• Automated SMS and emails on case events
• Operates in bilingual mode
Use of Open Source Technology
The entire project is built on the foundation of open source technology. FOSS, without
any licensing/ subscription charges, has been adopted for deploying ICT solutions at
courts.
Platforms for Service Delivery
e-Courts Portal
e-Courts portal (http://ecourts.gov.in) is a one-stop solution for all stakeholders such
as litigants, advocates, government agencies, police and common citizens to get the
status of case, view cause lists, judgments, daily orders etc. Citizens can locate the
case arising from any court across the country using various search criteria available
on the website. The website records more than 25 lakh hits daily. It is bilingual,
accessible friendly and GIGW compliant.
• Single unified portal across the country
• Quick delivery of court services – case status, next hearing date, cause lists, orders
and judgments
• Easy and efficient access to case information anytime, anywhere
e-Courts Services Portal e-Courts Services Mobile App
Mobile App
e-Courts Services Mobile App provides facility for all stakeholders, particularly
advocates and institutions/ organizations (having multiple cases), to create a portfolio
of interested cases and track those for future alerts. The Android and iOS App also
features a search option to track a case by QR Code. More than 50 lakh downloads of
the App have been recorded. A user can create a portfolio of cases by bookmarking
important cases. Calendar feature is the latest enhancement provided in the App
wherein advocates can view a diary of cases listed in the court.
SMS push
SMS push facility is provided to stakeholders like litigants and advocates to get SMS
on occurrence of each event in a case like filing, registration, adjournment, scrutiny,
listing, transfer of case, disposal, uploading of order etc., on their mobile registered
with the court.
SMS pull
SMS pull facility can be used by a stakeholder to send 16 character CNR number of a
case to 97668-99899, and get its current status.
Automated e-Mails
Litigants, advocates and police stations daily get cause lists (pertaining to their cases),
events like next dates, transfer of case, disposal, copy of order, copy of judgment etc.,
in .pdf format on their email ids registered with the court.
Touch screen kiosks and service centre
Touch screen kiosks are installed at various court complexes across the country.
Litigants and advocates can view case status, cause lists etc., on kiosk. Same
information can also be obtained from Judicial Service Centre established at each
court complex.
ePayment
Online payment of court fees, fine, penalty and judicial deposits has been initiated
online through https://pay.ecourts.gov.in, thereby eliminating the use of stamps,
cheque and cash. ePayment portal is also integrated with state specific vendors like
SBI ePay, GRAS, eGRAS, JeGRAS, Himkosh etc.
ePay application for online eFiling for online filing of legal
payments papers
e-Filing
The e-Committee of the Supreme Court of India has designed and setup e-Filing
system (https://efiling.ecourts.gov.in/), which enables electronic filing of legal
papers. Promoting paperless filing, e-Filing aims to create time and cost saving
efficiencies by adopting technological solution to file cases before the courts. Using
the system, cases (both civil and criminal) can be filed before High Courts and District
Courts that adopt e-Filing system. A user can also pay court fee online through it.
eFiling module is integrated with CIS application implemented at District and
Subordinate Courts as well as High Courts.
National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG)
Growing frustration of common man is about the efficiency of the system. Citizens are
curious about the pendency in courts. Tracking of litigation pendency at the level of
District Courts is also made open to the general public, researchers, academicians and
society at large. The figures of pendency at national level, state level, district level and
individual court level are now open to anyone visiting the National Judicial Data Grid
portal (http://njdg.ecourts.gov.in).
NJDG also serves as a decision support system to the management authorities like
Supreme Court, High Court, Central and State Government to monitor pendency on
varied attributes for effective decision-making. Management authorities can now track
the pendency of the remotest court of the country.
Enables transparency in tracking of pendency of cases on attributes like age, case
type, stage, delay reason etc.
Data from all District Courts and High Courts is available on the grid.
Serves as national judicial data warehouse
Provides timely inputs for making policy decisions to reduce delay and arrears
National Judicial Data Grid System
National Service and Tracking of Electronic Processes (NSTEP)
National Service and Tracking of Electronic Processes is a mechanism consisting of a
centralized process service tracking application and a Mobile App for bailiffs. NSTEP
is used for speedy delivery of processes and reducing inordinate delays in process
serving. NSTEP Mobile App, provided to bailiffs, helps in real time and transparent
tracking of service.
• Once the process is published through CIS software by the respective court, it is
available at NSTEP in electronic format.
• Through NSTEP web application, published processes which are within the
jurisdiction are allocated to bailiffs directly. If the service is outside jurisdiction
i.e. inter-district or inter-state, it may be allocated to the respective court
establishment
• The allocated processes can be viewed by the bailiff on the NSTEP Mobile App.
• Special PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant) are being provided to bailiffs for
process service and communicating to the courts process service modules. Bailiff,
on reaching the location of receiver, captures GPS location, photo and signature of
the receiver or photo of the locked door and reason for non service. The data
captured is instantly communicated to the central NSTEP application.
• Real time updates from remote locations reduce inordinate delays in process
service.
• Inter-district or Inter-state service of process is electronic, thereby reducing the
time required to send by post.
NSTEP Application
Virtual Courts
A novel concept of virtual courts has been introduced under the eCourts project. The
concept is aimed at reducing footfalls in the courts by eliminating the physical
presence of violator or advocate in the court. Virtual court can be managed by virtual
judge whose jurisdiction can be extended to entire state and working hours may be
24X7. Neither litigant need to come to court nor judge will have to physically preside
over the court. Thus precious judicial time will also be saved.
A Virtual Court was inaugurated in Delhi on 26 th July on pilot basis to try Traffic
Challan Cases. It can be further extended to try other type of cases also. The Virtual
Court concept will reduce the pendency of cases tremendously (several lakhs),
considering the large number of traffic offences and offences under local and special
laws.
Virtual Court Website Acknowledgement
Key Features
1. Virtual Court eliminates physical presence of offender/violator in the court.
2. Number of judges performing Judicial work in adjudicating traffic challans across
the state can be reduced virtually to single judge located in any part of the state.
3. Electronic Traffic Challans are made available to the virtual court for adjudication.
4. Virtual Judge can proceed adjudication of the cases online by imposing fine.
5. On imposing the fine by Virtual Judge, violator gets the SMS on his/her mobile to
visit portal vcourts.gov.in and may pay the Fine amount.
6. On successful payment of the fine, the case is deemed disposed off.
7. If violator, wish to contest the case, response is recorded by entering OTP on the
portal. In such eventuality the case is transferred to regular court for further
hearing.
Key Statistics as on September 2021
Proceedings Completed in Challans : 91,01,423
Fine Paid in : 17,05,912 cases
Total Fine amount collected: Rs. 1,80,63,84,612 (crossed 180 Crores)
Offenders who have recorded wish to contest the case: 92,137
Integration with other systems
UMANG
UMANG (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance) is a Mobile App that
provides a single platform to citizens to access pan India e-Gov services ranging from
Central to Local Government bodies and other citizen-centric services.
e-Courts services are now integrated with UMANG App and launched for District and
Subordinate courts. All the APIs required by UMANG are shared by e-Courts team.
Now case status, orders/ judgments, cause lists etc. are also available through
UMANG App to common citizens.
Common Service Centres
Common Service Centers (CSCs) are access points for delivering services to citizens
from rural and remote parts of the country. e-Courts API is shared with CSCs.
Citizens can now get the status of their cases through these centres.
Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS)
Inter-operable Criminal Justice System (ICJS) is an ambitious project, aimed at
integrating the Crime and Criminals Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) project
with the e-Courts and e-Prisons databases, as well as with other pillars of the criminal
justice system such as forensics, prosecution and juvenile homes in a phased manner.
e-Courts has become interoperable with other pillars of the criminal justice delivery
system. In a landmark achievement, a pilot was inaugurated in Warangal city of
Telangana through live electronic exchange of data between courts and police.
Courts can consume live data of FIR and chargesheet from police. If FIR is ready in
electronic form in the system of police, ICJS interface will indicate to the court about
readiness of FIR data to be consumed. On consumption, court will get FIR number,
names of the accused, details of offence, time, date, place of occurrence, details of
arrest etc. In reciprocation, court will send all remand details, bail details, property
release etc., to police.
Police will be able to see the update of each FIR and orders passed by the court in
remand, bail or release of property.
When the chargesheet is ready in electronic form with police, it will be notified
through ICJS interface, and court will consume the chargesheet data. On such
consumption, court will get names of the accused and their details, names of victim
and their details, names of witnesses and their details, name of investigating officer
etc. Apart from these details, acts, sections, date of arrest, on bail or in jail, other
details of offence, chargesheet number, and FIR number will be sent to court. Court
can consume this data in Case Information System. In reciprocation, court will send
CNR number link to the police to provide all the details of the case including parties,
advocates, date of registration, first hearing and next hearing date and entire history of
the case and business recorded.
Delivery channels of services
Stakeholders
The project is manned and managed by court staff. Judges are using the system to
deliver justice speedily. Advocates, litigants, government agencies and citizens are
real consumers of the project. The involvement of court staff and judicial officers has
ensured effective service delivery to stakeholders.
Court staff and judicial officers
Judicial officers and the court staff members posted in the remote District and Taluka
Courts are the real service providers and change agents in the project. With challenges
ranging from digital literacy to infrastructure requirements such as electricity power
and internet connectivity, spectacular results are produced by the judicial fraternity of
the country.
Court staff
The ministerial staff members in the District and Taluka Courts are trained in using
ICT and are efficiently using the system. These staff members are responsible to
capture case data and events in the case life cycle. It has considerably reduced the
work load of the ministerial staff in generating cause lists, processes, judgment
templates, maintaining several registers, generation of statistical returns, certified
copies, financial management and several such activities. Business process re-
engineering on the part of courts procedures will further increase the benefits of ICT.
Court staff members working as system administrators: Example of
capacity building
As it is difficult to get technical manpower to work in the remote Districts and Taluka
Courts of the country, two ministerial staff members from every District Court are
selected to function as District System Administrators (DSAs).They are trained with
technical knowledge and are capable of handling all technical activities in court
complexes like Server Management, Network Management etc. These DSAs are now
working as IT managers at District Courts of the country.
Judicial officers
Capacity building exercise was undertaken by e-Committee and all judicial officers in
the country (more than 14000) are now trained in using ICT. Judicial officers are
efficiently managing pendency through the use of ICT. Monitoring of court activities
and overview of case proceedings has given more control on the cases. Various alerts
provided by the system help judicial officers in better decision-making.
JustIS Mobile App
JustIS Mobile App for judicial officers helps them to monitor pendency and disposal
at finger tips. Alerts on undated cases are also provided through SMS. Use of digital
signatures for signing orders/ judgments/ notices is initiated.
Services to Stakeholders
Litigants/ Citizens
The motto of judiciary is to promote transparency and provide access to information
to all the stakeholders in the justice delivery system. The litigants were generally
clueless as to why their cases languish for years together. They find it difficult to
understand why courts require their presence on several dates without any business
being transacted on those dates. The queries ranging from what has happened in the
court on a particular date as to when the case is listed next and for what purpose were
asked by the litigants to the ministerial staff. It becomes further more difficult to a
litigant when they are not aware of the judicial case number.
Such issues are now resolved and the queries can now be answered through multiple
service delivery channels such as website, Mobile App, SMS, email, kiosk, and query
counter. Citizens need not to visit court or even enquire the advocate about the case
status.
Services like case status, cause list and orders/ judgments from courts in the country
are available to citizens on the web portal, http://services.ecourts.gov.in. The entire
history of a case is also available. Litigants can view the business transacted on the
date and check orders/ judgments given by court. They can also check the reason for
adjourning the case. Facility to search case by litigant’s name has ensured the ease in
searching of the case by layman without having any judicial knowledge.
It has been ensured that the services cater an all-inclusive approach. The e-Courts
Services portal is also accessible to differently abled persons. Web Content
Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are followed.
While the transparency is provided at large to citizens, the privacy concerns of
individuals are also addressed. In the disputes of private nature like family matters, or
those mandated by law, the facility is available to mask the names of litigants, thereby
hiding the identity of individuals from the public.
Services are also provided by alerting the users through SMS or email proactively.
Various events of case life cycle are notified to litigants through SMS/ email. For
those who don’t have access to website or SMS, touch screen kiosks and query
counters are established in the local Taluka/ District Courts to help them find case
information.
Mobile App has further enabled litigants to fetch case details on mobile. A case can be
saved and refreshed in mobile to update the current status.
Advocates/ Lawyers
Advocate is a link between judiciary and the litigant. Advocates are the main
consumers of the system. Case information is currently provided to lawyers through
web and mobile SMS, email and Mobile App. Copies of judgments and orders are
available on-line. The collective information of all the cases pertaining to a particular
advocate and advocate-wise cause list is also available. Advocates need not to
maintain the case diary physically.
The communication between courts and advocates is one way i.e., from courts to
advocates. It has to be both ways. As advocates are becoming more and more tech-
savvy, the effective use of ICT will further improve. The inception of new modules
like e-Filing and submission of e-documents and e-applications have ensured the
communication of advocates to courts in a speedy manner and in digital format with
flexibility of submitting documents 24X7 from the comfort of advocates’ own office.
Court fee and all other fee payments are now made through digital mode instead of
judicial stamps or currency.
Mobile App is serving as a boon to advocates. It has also ensured speedy access to
cases by searching on various criteria including advocate bar registration number.
Advocates can create portfolio of their own cases for tracking them easily. Facility
like calendar has eliminated the use of maintaining diary. Viewing the occupancy in
calendar is further assisting advocates to fix case dates. e-Filing facility helps
advocates file case without even physically presenting the case in court.
Recently introduced e-Filing 3.0 system is a complete end to end solution developed
for online filing of plaints, written statements, replies and various applications related
to cases. Both civil and criminal cases can be filed before any high court or district
court of the country. It is designed in bilingual (English and local language) to reach
wider group covering advocates/litigants. The system also allows access by litigant to
restricted services thereby avoiding multiple visits to the advocate’s office.
Police/ Government departments/ Financial institutions
Police, government departments and financial institutions are major stakeholders in
justice delivery system. More than 50% criminal cases where police/ state is
stakeholder are pending in the country. Suit filed by or against government
departments or financial institutions forms another major part of pendency. A facility
is available to these major stakeholders to track cases through service delivery
channels such as website, Mobile App, automated emails, SMS and kiosk. Special
facilities are available to police to track cases by selecting respective police station or
by entering the FIR. Similarly, government departments can track cases by selecting
case type, e.g., land ref cases. Financial institutions such as insurance companies can
track cases just by selecting MACP Case Type. Further, a facility is available to these
stakeholders to search cases using their acts/ sections. All these facilities are available
on public service delivery mechanism such as website and Mobile Apps. Respective
government departments can track cases remotely, and the management authorities
can also track cases of courts or their department scattered across the state at finger
tips.
Open APIs
Open APIs are being published for these departments to further develop their own
monitoring and compliance mechanism/ software to track and manage their cases.
This will help major stakeholders proactively take actions on the courts directions and
comply accordingly.
