E-COURT
PROJECT - POLITY
News: Cabinet approves Phase-3 of e-Courts
Project that will see digitisation of court records and migration to cloud
What's
in the news?
●
The Union Cabinet approved the third phase
of the e-Courts Project with a financial outlay of ₹7,210 crore to upgrade
digital infrastructure of the lower judiciary.
Key
takeaways:
●
A tripartite agreement will be signed
between State governments, the Centre and the 25 High Courts for the e-Courts
Project with a financial outlay of ₹7,210 crore.
e-Court
Project:
●
The e-Courts Mission Mode Project, is a Pan-India Project, monitored and
funded by the Department of Justice, Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of
India for the District Courts across the country.
Administrative
Control: Ministry
of Law and Justice.
Objectives:
The project envisages
●
To provide efficient & time-bound citizen-centric services delivery as
detailed in e-Court Project Litigant's Charter.
●
To develop, install & implement
decision support systems in courts.
●
To automate the processes to provide transparency in the accessibility of
information to its stakeholders.
●
To enhance
judicial productivity, both qualitatively & quantitatively, to make the
justice delivery system affordable, accessible, cost-effective, predictable,
reliable and transparent.
Phases
of e-Court Project:
●
Phases
I and II had dealt with the digitisation of the judiciary such
as
○
e-filing, tracking cases online
○
uploading judgments online.
●
Phase
III
of the e-Courts project aims for
○
Digitisation of court processes
○
Upgrade the electronic infrastructure of
the judiciary.
○
Enable access to lawyers and litigants.
○
Seamless exchange of information between
various branches of the State. Such as between the judiciary, the police and
the prison systems through the Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS).
Features:
The project envisages
various path breaking initiatives like
●
Digital
& Paperless Courts that aim to bring court proceedings
under a digital format in a court, thereby, limiting the use of paper and
speeding up the disposal of cases.
●
Online
Court that focus on eliminating the presence of litigants
or lawyers in the court.
●
Expansion of scope of Virtual Courts beyond adjudication of Traffic Violations.
●
Use
of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
would allow for data analysis to work towards reduction in pendency and understanding
litigation patterns and forecasting future needs.
●
An Online Dispute Resolution platform will
encourage alternate dispute resolution and a robust video conferencing system.
Benefits:
●
Faster justice delivery.
●
Clearing pendency which is around 3.27
crore cases before Indian courts. Of which 85,000 have been pending for over 30
years as of June 2020 as per the e-Committee.
●
Reduce long delays and difficulties for
ordinary litigants.
●
Building people’s trust in the judiciary.
Concerns:
●
As per Criminal Justice and Police
Accountability Project, the ICJS will exacerbate existing class and caste
inequalities.
○
For instance, the exercise of data
creation at local police stations have historically contributed to the
criminalisation of entire communities through colonial-era laws such as the
Criminal Tribes Act of 1871.
○
It helped in labelling such communities as
“habitual offenders”.
○
ICJIS also has the potential to label
citizens with such tags.
●
Large-scale gathering and sharing of data
with no data protection regime present in India may cause data theft,
cybersecurity issues and online harassment.
●
Localised data will be centralised by the
Ministry of home affairs will lead to
○
Creation of a 360-degree profile of each
person by integrating all of their interactions with government agencies into a
unified database.
WAY
FORWARD:
●
The e-Courts project must move towards
localization of data. Also, the e-Committee must prevent the seamless exchange
of data between the branches of the state that should remain separate.
●
Collected data needs to be stored in an
anonymous and aggregated manner.
●
The Supreme Court needs to ensure that the
e-courts project does not violate the privacy standards that it set in
Puttaswamy vs. Union of India (2017).
●
Active participation of citizens should be
there as when data of the courts and police stations are integrated, the link
is individual citizens.
Go
back to basics:
e-Committee
of the Supreme Court of India:
●
The e-Committee is the governing body
charged with overseeing the ‘e-Courts
Project’ conceptualized under the “National Policy and Action Plan for
Implementation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the Indian
Judiciary-2005”.
●
Former Chief Justice of India, Justice R.C. Lahoti proposed the
constitution of the e-Committee.
Aim:
●
To prepare Indian judiciary for the
digital age and to make the justice
delivery system more efficient and thus benefitting its various
stakeholders.
Chairperson:
●
The Chief
Justice of India (CJI) is the patron-in-chief and chairperson of the
e-committee.
Objectives:
The e-Committee is guided
by these objectives:
●
Interlinking
of all courts across the country.
●
ICT enablement of the Indian judicial
system.
●
Enabling courts to enhance judicial
productivity, both qualitatively and quantitatively.
●
To make the justice delivery system
accessible, cost-effective, transparent and accountable.
Important
Initiatives by the e-committee:
1.
E-Courts services mobile application:
●
Case status, cause lists, Court orders can
be accessed through this mobile app, making these services available 24X7.
2.
Virtual courts:
●
It is a concept, aimed at eliminating the
presence of litigants or lawyers in the court and for adjudication of cases on
a virtual platform.
3.
National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG):
●
The portal is a national repository of
data relating to cases pending and disposed of in all high courts, district and
taluka courts of the country.
4.
E-Sewa Kendras:
●
They enable litigants to obtain
information with respect to case status and to obtain copies of judgments and
orders. These centres also extend assistance in e-filing of cases.