e-Courts Brief PDF

 Contents Overview............................................................................................................. 1 Objectives........................................................................................................... 2 Cas...

 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.