Union Cabinet commences Phase 3 of e-courts project, Rs 7,210 crore budget allocated

Union Minister Anurag Thakur on Wednesday announced that the Union Cabinet has approved the beginning of the launch of Phase 3 of the e-courts projects while allocating a budget of Rs 7,210 crore for the same, Moneycontrol reported.

“Cabinet has approved Phase III of eCourts Project, with financial outlay of Rs.7210 crore. eCourts Mission Mode Project is the prime mover for improving access to justice using technology,” wrote Manish Desai, Principal Spokesperson of Government of India.

Earlier, the Union government had allocated a budget of Rs 7,000 crore for the project in this year’s Union budget. The move witnesses a four-fold jump in budget allocation from Rs 1,670 crore allocated in 2015 for the Phase 2 of the project.

The Chief Justice of India, D Y Chandrachud also lauded the central government’s decision as he noted that the bigger budget allocation will help improve the efficiency of the country’s justice system.

“Such endeavours (e-courts) will ensure that the court truly reaches out to every citizen of the country,” CJI Chandrachud said.

The project for digital upgradation of the courts across the country began in 2005 with the aim to equip the Indian judiciary with information and communication technology.

Another aim of the project is to promote the ease of justice by making the system more accessible, affordable, predictable, reliable and transparent for all stakeholders.

Under the first phase of the project, the taluka and district courts were computerised with the Case Information Software (CIS). The software provided basic court-related services to litigants and lawyers.

During the second phase, all courts of the country saw their systems integrated and the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) was also introduced. NJDG is a real-time repository of data about the pendency and disposal of cases across the country.

Now, the third phase will introduce numerous new features like digital and paperless courts that aim the store the entire proceedings of court in a digital format.

Online courts also aim to eliminate the presence of litigants or lawyers in the courts with the help of virtual hearings. The new phase will also expand the scope of virtual courts beyond the cases related to Traffic Violations.

The third phase also aims to add Artificial Intelligence into the judicial system and introduce features like Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis of case pendency and forecasting future litigation as well.

The third phase of e-courts project will be implemented under the joint partnership of Department of Justice, Ministry of Law & Justice and eCommittee of the Supreme Court of India.

The CJI Chandrachud is himself heading the eCommittee of the Supreme Court for the past two years.

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