technology in indian

courts
Dr. K.S. Jayachandran

Deputy Secretary

Department of Justice

Ministry of Law and Justice

Government of India
 22 May, 2017

Presented during conference on Disruptive Innovation in Legal Services

- The Judges Forum at Deakin University, Melbourne
the leftovers


outline

1. International benchmarks
2. Pace of digitisation in India
3. What next?
4. Other initiatives of Department of Justice

Benchmarks
Singapore

Luxemborg

Iceland

South Korea

Austria
Singapore
began court automation in 1990 .

All the features of eCourts Project of India.

e-Litigation in its Supreme Court, whereby lawyers can access court files
and file documents online.
Luxembourg
started computerising courts and public prosecutors office in 1985, called
criminal chain.

Computerisation in civil and administrative matters started in 1998

but is used in-house by Judges only.
Iceland
promoted major increases in productivity in the court system and a substantial

shortening of case handling time since 1992, with concomitantly better

access to courts.
South Korea

computerized Case Management System in 1986 and electronic filing system

in 2010.
Austria
judicial automation application in 1986 and re-designed and improved it
further in late 1990s inter alia to enable internet access of data.
 and India

2010
All top performing countries commenced computerisation of courts decades
before India.
India has reached almost the same level of computerisation

Benefits have started to accrue to the citizens now.

2. Pace of digitisation in India

indicators
Increase in number of
computerised courts:
The number of computerised courts in the country in February,
2014 was 13227

16,934 computerised courts now.

Successful roll out of National
Judicial Data Grid:
National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) portal was opened for public access in
September, 2015.

As of now, National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) has 7 crores pending and
disposed cases and more than 4 crore orders/ judgments.
benefits of NJDG
Policy Inputs
Transparency
Litigant Charter
Judicial Management and Monitoring
Record number of electronic transactions for
eCourts:

As on Jan, 2014, there were around 2 crore electronic transactions

Touched more than 66 crores of electronic transactions in 2017.

eCourts transactions: one of the topmost accessed services of the government

Roll out of eCourt services:

The services such as SMS and case disposal were started in 2014.

As on date, the portal has recorded more than 7.23 crore auto-generated SMSs
sent to lawyers and judges.

During the period, number of court orders accessed has increased from a mere
64 to 3.56 crores.

During 2016, 63 lakh SMSs auto-generated through the system have been sent
to the litigants and lawyers.

The facility was started in Jan, 2015.

Operationalisation of video
conferencing facilities
No video conferencing facility under the project till 2014.

Now been operationalised between 500 courts and corresponding

prisons during 2015 -2017.
Improvement in Indias rank under the Enforcing
Contracts indicator in Doing Business Report
2017:

India has been ranked 172nd in this report against 178th in 2016
under the Enforcing Contracts indicator.

efiling
electronic process service
electronic case management
 What next ?


ICJS
Interoperable Criminal Justice System

Eventual integration of eCourts

Integrate the courts, police stations, prosecution,

forensic science laboratories and Jails.
Other initiatives
Socio legal cells
With Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

Reach children in conflict with law and also those in need

of care and protection through counselling and guidance
sessions, legal advice, legal aid, rehabilitation support and
legal awareness to the children and their families.

Training and sensitization of the Special Juvenile Police Unit

Assisting Juvenile Justice Boards

Access to Justice for tribal
communities:
Enabled poor, tribal communities to secure land rights and access entitlements
under government schemes.

Forest Rights Committees under Forest Rights Act were formed and made
functional.

Securing livelihood and furthering conservation practices

Villages got community rights to conserve, regenerate and manage Forest Land
under FRA and Peoples Biodiversity Registers were made for ensuring
livelihood support for the people.
Mainstreaming Legal Aid through
Common Service Centre:
Paralegal Volunteers connect a marginalized person
seeking legal advice with a trained lawyer sitting in a district
head quarter or State capital through video conferencing.

Reaching populations which remained untouched due to

geographical challenges.

Experimental mode at 1000 CSCs.

If successful, it will be scaled up throughout the country in all

the CSCs in a phased manner.
District Facilitation Centers & Friend of
Justice
for facilitating access to justice in courts:

Facilitating litigants whose cases have been pending for a long time

due to lack of coordination between the litigants and various agencies

like police and forensic laboratories, health institutions and public
utility providers.
District Facilitation Centers & Friend of
Justice
for facilitating access to justice in courts:

Headed by one Nyaya Mitra (Friend of Justice).

Assist litigants in getting cases resolved early by liaising

with State agencies.
Improving access to justice for weaker sections of society
through legal aid and legal empowerment initiatives
Facilitate/support the resolution of grievances received from
the Department of Justice.
Pro bono Lawyering:
An application in our website for interested
lawyers to enroll and participate in pro bono
lawyering.

To create a database of lawyers willing to

provide their services to litigants of specified
categories.
Key Takeaways from today
Key Takeaways from today
eTrial

Counsel led evidence

Computation Law

Online dispute resolution

Concerns

Privacy issues

Digital Divide
Thank you