As part of the National eGovernance Plan, the eCourts project is an integrated Mission Mode Project under implementation since 2007 for the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) development of the Indian Judiciary based on the “National Policy and Action Plan for Implementation of Information and Communication Technology in the Indian Judiciary”. Phase I (2011-2015) of the e-Courts project aimed at providing basic hardware and network connectivity to the Courts, while Phase II (2015-2023) focused on providing citizen centric services to the litigants and lawyers including, development of an end-to end digital system, which revolutionized the way public accessed the services provided by the judiciary.

Some of the major steps undertaken in Phase I, include:

1. Computerisation of 14,249 District and Subordinate Courts, installation of Local Area Network (LAN) at 13,683 courts,
2. Hardware installation in 13,436 courts and software installed in 13,672 courts.
3. Laptops were provided to 14,309 judicial officers and change management exercise was completed in all High Courts.
4. Over 14,000 Judicial Officers were trained in the use of UBUNTU-Linux Operating System
5. More than 3900 court staff was trained in Case Information System (CIS) as System Administrators
6. Video Conferencing facility was operationalised between 493 court complexes and 347 corresponding jails.

Under phase II of the eCourts Mission Mode Project, several e-initiatives on part of the Government have helped facilitate access to justice using technology, which are detailed as under:

1. Under the Wide Area Network (WAN) Project, connectivity was provided to 99.5% of total Court Complexes across the country, with 10 Mbps to 100 Mbps bandwidth speed. The Wide Area Network (WAN) Project under eCourts project is aimed at connecting all District and Subordinate court complexes, spread across the country using various technologies like Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), Optical Fibre Cable (OFC), Radio Frequency (RF), Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT), Submarine Cable etc. This forms the backbone for the eCourts project ensuring data connectivity in courts across the length and breadth of the country.
2. National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) is a database of orders, judgments, and cases, created as an online platform under the eCourts Project. It provides information relating to judicial proceedings/decisions of all computerized district and subordinate courts of the country. The litigants can access case information and more than 29.94 crore orders / judgments (as on date).
3. Live Streaming of court proceedings has started in the High Courts of Gujarat, Gauhati, Orissa, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Patna, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Telangana, Meghalaya and Calcutta.
4. As on date, the district and subordinate courts have heard 2,57,14,770 cases, while the High Courts have heard92,31,640 cases (totaling 3.49 crore), using video conferencing system. The Supreme Court of India has held 9,94,054 hearings (from March’2020 till Feb’2025) through video conferencing.
5. eFiling system (version 3.0) was rolled out with upgraded features for lawyers to access and upload documents related to the cases from any location 24X7.
6. ePayment system was launched for hassle free transfer of fee, etc.
7. National Service and Tracking of Electronic Processes (NSTEP) was launched for technology enabled process serving and issuing of summons.
8. Judgment Search portal was started with features such as search by Bench, Case Type, Case Number, Year, Petitioner/ Respondent Name, etc.  This facility is being provided free of cost to all.
9. To facilitate easy and hassle-free access to citizen-centric services, 1610 eSewa Kendras (Facilitation Centres) have been established across India.
10. 28 Virtual Courts are functioning across 21 States/UTs for trying traffic related offences. Over 6.66 crore cases have been handled by these virtual courts and in more than 68 lakhs cases, online fine of more than Rs. 714.99 crores have been realized.
11. Apart from this, as part of eCourts services, 7 platforms have been created to provide information on case status, cause lists, judgements etc. to lawyers/ litigants through SMS Push and Pull, Email, multilingual eCourts services Portal, JSC (Judicial Service centres), Info Kiosks, eCourts Mobile App for lawyers/litigants (2.87 crore downloads till date) and JustIS App for judges (21,105 downloads till date).
12. To bring in greater objectivity, consistency, transparency and speed, Case Information System (CIS) version 4.0 software has been implemented across the district and taluka courts across the country.

eCourts Phase III (2023-2027) has been approved by the Union Cabinet in Sep’2023 at an outlay of ₹7,210 crore, which is over four times the funding for Phase II. The project envisages various new digital initiatives such as establishment of Digital and Paperless Courts that aim to bring court proceedings under a digital format, digitization of court records (both legacy records and pending cases), expansion of video conferencing facilities to courts, jails and hospitals, scope of online courts beyond adjudication of traffic violations, saturation of all court complexes with eSewa kendras, state of the art and latest Cloud based data repository for easy retrieval and supporting the digitized court records, software applications, live streaming, and electronic evidence etc., use of emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence and its subsets like Optical Character Recognition (OCR) etc. for analysis of case pendency, forecasting future litigation, etc. Thus, the efforts of the Government of integrating technology with the governance has facilitated the ease of seeking justice by making the Court experience convenient, inexpensive and hassle free to all the citizens of the country. As on date, digital infrastructure has been provided to 18,735 courts, as per details at Annexure I.

This information was given by the Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Law and Justice and Minister of State in the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha today.

*****

Annexure-I

S.No	High Court	State	Court Complexes	Courts
1	Allahabad	Uttar Pradesh	180	2222
2	Andhra Pradesh	Andhra Pradesh	218	617
3	Bombay	Dadra and Nagar Haveli	1	3
		Daman and Diu	2	2
		Goa	17	39
		Maharashtra	471	2157
4	Calcutta	Andaman & Nicobar Islands	4	14
		West Bengal	89	827
5	Chhattisgarh	Chhattisgarh	93	434
6	Delhi	Delhi	6	681
7	Gauhati	Arunachal Pradesh	14	28
		Assam	74	408
		Mizoram	8	69
		Nagaland	11	37
8	Gujarat	Gujarat	376	1268
9	Himachal Pradesh	Himachal Pradesh	50	162
10	Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh	Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir and Union Territory of Ladakh	86	218
11	Jharkhand	Jharkhand	28	447
12	Karnataka	Karnataka	207	1031
13	Kerala	Kerala	158	484
		Lakshadweep	1	3
14	Madhya Pradesh	Madhya Pradesh	213	1363
15	Madras	Puducherry	4	24
		Tamil Nadu	263	1124
16	Manipur	Manipur	17	38
17	Meghalaya	Meghalaya	7	42
18	Orissa	Odisha	185	686
19	Patna	Bihar	84	1142
20	Punjab & Haryana	Chandigarh	1	30
		Haryana	53	500
		Punjab	64	541
21	Rajasthan	Rajasthan	247	1240
22	Sikkim	Sikkim	8	23
23	Telangana	Telangana	129	476
24	Tripura	Tripura	14	84
25	Uttarakhand	Uttarakhand	69	271
	Total		3452	18735

***

Samrat/Allen

(Release ID: 2116238) Visitor Counter : 431