E-Courts
The eCourts 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 eCommittee, Supreme Court of India with a vision to transform the Indian Judiciary by ICT enablement of Courts.
Ecommittee is a body constituted by the Government of India in pursuance of a proposal received from Hon'ble the Chief Justice of India to constitute an eCommittee to assist him in formulating a National policy on computerization of Indian Judiciary and advise on technological communication and management related changes.
The eCourts Mission Mode Project, is a Pan-India Project, monitored and funded by Department of Justice, Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India for the District Courts across the country.
THE PROJECT ENVISAGES
To provide efficient & time-bound citizen centric services delivery as detailed in eCourt Project Litigant's Charter.
To develop, install & implement decision support systems in courts.
To automate the processes to provide transparency in accessibility of information to its stakeholderTo enhance judicial productivity, both qualitatively & quantitatively, to make the justice delivery system affordable, accessible, cost effective, predictable, reliable and transparent.
Phase-I :
In Phase-I of the eCourts Project beginning from 2007, a large number of Court Complexes, Computer Server Rooms and Judicial Service Centres were readied for computerization of the District Courts. The District and Taluka Court Complexes covered in Phase-I were computerized with installation of hardware, LAN and Case Information Software (CIS), for providing basic case related services to the litigants and the lawyers. A large number of District Courts launched their websites for the convenience of the different stakeholders. The Change Management exercise was undertaken to train the Judicial Officers and Court Staff in the use of computers and Case Information System (CIS) was successfully implemented. The Judicial Officers were trained by the Master Trainers trained from amongst them for continuing training programme. The CIS Master trainers have trained District System Administrators (DSAs) in the use of CIS. The DSAs have trained all the Court Staff in the use of CIS. The data entry for all pending cases has reached an advanced stage of completion. The Process Re-Engineering exercise was initiated to have a fresh look on the process, procedures, systems and Court Rules in force in the different District Courts under High Courts. The Phase-I concluded with extended timelines upto 30th March 2015.
Phase II:
The Policy and Action Plan Document Phase-II of the ecourts Project, received approval of Hon'ble the Chief Justice of India on 8th January 2014. The government of India sanctioned the project on 4th August 2015. In Phase-II, the covered courts are provisioned for additional hardware with (1+3) systems per Court Room, the uncovered Courts of Phase-I and the newly established Courts with (2+6) systems per Court Room and the Court Complexes are provisioned for hardware, LAN etc.
The dynamic implementation structure provides for greater participation and cooperation between the eCommittee, the Department of Justice (Government of India), NIC, DietY and Ministry of finance. It provides for High Courts as Implementing Agency, of the project under its jurisdiction. The Infrastructure Model provides for adopting Cloud Computing Architecture which is efficient and cost effective, while retaining the present Servers Rooms as Network Rooms and Judicial Service centers as Centralized Filing Centres. Provision has been made for computerization of office of District Legal Services Authority; Taluka Legal Services Committee, the National Judicial Academy and the State Judicial Academies for efficient delivery of services and training.
Continuing with the implementation of Free and Open Source Solutions (FOSS), Phase-II has adopted the Core-Periphery model of Case Information Software, the core being Unified as National Core, while the periphery developed according to requirement of each High Court, with NIC, Pune continuing to be the Centre for Software Development and related applications, ensuring software compatibility and interoperability, both horizontally and vertically, with the data including metadata to be unified and standardized.
In Phase-II, all the remaining Court Complexes are provisioned to be connected with Jails and Desktop based Video Conferencing to go beyond routine remands and production of under-trial prisoners. It will also be used for recording evidence in sensitive cases and gradually extended to cover as many types of cases as possible. With an emphasis on Capacity Building of Judicial Officers and Process Re-Engineering, the Phase-II provides for Judicial Knowledge Management System including Integrated Library Management System and use of Digital Libraries.
eCourts Services
• The App provides information related to Cases filed in the Subordinate courts and most of the High Courts in the country.
• One can use this exclusively for District Courts or High Court or both. By default the app is set for District Courts however you can change to High Court or Both. So decide your requirements and configure your settings accordingly.
• eCourts Services App is useful to Citizen, Litigants, Lawyers, Police, Government Agencies and other Institutional Litigants.
• In the App services are given under different caption viz. Search by CNR, Case Status, Cause List,calendar and My Cases.
• CNR is unique number assigned to each case filed in District and Taluka Courts in the Country, through Case Information System. Simply by entering the CNR one can get the current status and details of the case.
• Case Status can be searched by various options like Case Number, Party Name, Filing Number, FIR Number, Advocate Name, Relevant Act of the Case and Case Type.
• All above options are shown in the App with identifiable separate icons under the Case Status tab
• Initial search result of case status is displayed with Case Number and names of parties.
• Once link of case number is clicked current case status and entire history of the case is displayed with expandable view captions.
1) Case Details caption shows information of Case Type, Filing Number, Filing Date, Registration Number, Registration Date and CNR Number.
2) Case Status Option shows information of First Hearing Date, Next Hearing Date, State of Case, Court Number and Designation of Judge.
3) Expandable view captions viz. Petitioner and Advocate, Respondent and Advocate, Acts, History of Case Hearing, Judgment and Order, Transfer Details can be viewed when user clicks any of these expandable captions.
4) The “History of Case Hearing” caption shows entire history of the case from first date of hearing to current date of hearing. When we click date of hearing shown in the form of link, it will show business recorded on clicked date.
5) Judgment and Order caption shows links of all judgments and orders passed and uploaded in the selected case. Link of the Judgment and order can be clicked to view the same.
6) “Add Case” button can be seen while viewing the case history, on the top right corner “. Any case can be saved with the help of Add Case button. Once a case is added, the button changes its appearance and caption to Saved Case.
