Parliament Question: Digitization of courts

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF LAW AND JUSTICE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE RAJYA SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 1548 ANSWERED ON - 12/02/2026 DIGITIZATION OF COURTS 1548 # Shri Chunnilal Garasiya:

Shri Rajib Bhattacharjee:

Shri Mayankkumar Nayak:

Dr. Parmar Jashvantsinh Salamsinh:

Smt. Rekha Sharma:

Shri Narayana Koragappa:

Dr. Bhagwat Karad:

Shri Ashokrao Shankarrao Chavan:

Shri Lahar Singh Siroya:

Will the Minister of Law and Justice be pleased to state:

(a) the progress made under the e-Courts project during the last year;

(b) whether digitization in pilot courts has reduced case disposal time;

(c) if so, the details thereof;

(d) the current status of financial and infrastructural support to the States;

(e) the manner in which concerns related to cybersecurity and data protection are being addressed; and

(f) the roadmap for expansion of digital courts nationwide? ANSWER 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)

(a): The e-Courts Mission Mode Project is being implemented in a phased manner across the country with the objective of strengthening the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the judicial system. The e-Courts Project is currently in Phase III (2023-

12027), with a financial outlay of Rs. 7,210 crore. During the last year, the e-Courts project has seen continued progress through expansion of e-filing, e-payments, increased adoption of virtual and hybrid hearings, digitisation of court records, strengthening of Case Information System, and enhanced public access to case information through the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) etc. Some key initiatives and achievements under the eCourts Project as on

31.12.2025 are as under:

(i) Over 637.85 crore pages of court records including legacy records have been digitized across Courts to ensure faster retrieval, secure storage and seamless digital workflows.

(ii) 29 Virtual Courts have been established to enable online adjudication of traffic challans.

Virtual Courts have received 9.81 crore challans, out of which 8.74 crore were disposed and 94.55 lakh challans were paid amounting to Rs. 973.32 crore.

(iii) Video Conferencing (VC) facilities have been expanded across 3,240 court complexes and 1,272 jails. Courts have conducted over 3.93 crore hearings through video conferencing, facilitating remote hearings of undertrials, witnesses and lawyers.

(iv) Live streaming of court proceeding is operational in 11 High Courts.

(v) E-filing and e-payments systems have been implemented to allow online filing of cases and digital payment of court fees and fines. Approximately 1.03 crore cases have been filed through the e-filing platform and the e-payments system has processed transactions for court-fee worth Rs. 1,234 crore and fine worth Rs. 63 crore.

(vi) National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) provides public access to case data, statistics of courts across the country and has been upgraded with an improved dashboard, functioning as a monitoring tool, to identify, manage & reduce pendency of cases.

(vii) CIS 4.0 has been implemented in all courts, with enhanced usability, privacy safeguards and integration with national platforms such as NJDG, e-filing, virtual courts and ICJS.

(viii) The S3WaaS platform hosts 730 District Court websites, ensuring secure and accessible web infrastructure.

(ix) Real-time digital services have expanded significantly, with 35 lakh daily hits on the e- Courts portal and more than 3 crore SMSes and more than 1 crore emails were issued in December 2025.

(x) The e-Courts Services mobile app (3.5 crore downloads) provides the lawyers and litigants relevant information about case status, cause lists etc.

(xi) The JustIS app (22,090 downloads) is a management tool for the judges assisting them to effectively organise and monitor their judicial business.

2(xii) 48 e-Sewa Kendras are functional across all High Courts and 2283 e-Sewa Kendras across District Courts.

(xiii) The National Service and Tracking of Electronics Processes (NSTEP) system has been implemented for electronic service and tracking of summons and notices using mobile- based and GPS-enabled delivery mechanisms. Under NSTEP, the courts have processed

6.21 crore e-processes, out of which 1.61 crore e-processes have been successfully delivered.

(xiv) Digital Courts 2.1 is a customized application for paperless Courts with facility of translation and transcription using Artificial Intelligence (AI). It enables judges to access all case related documents, pleadings, and evidence digitally, marking a significant leap toward a paperless court ecosystem.

(b) & (c): Digitization initiatives undertaken in the courts are intended to improve efficiency, transparency and accessibility of court processes. While case disposal time depends on multiple factors, including complexity of the case, the nature of evidence, delay in reports from forensic labs, cooperation of key stakeholders such as the bar, investigating agencies, witnesses, litigants and social stigma and biases, judicial workload etc, the digitization has contributed to smoother workflows, reduced dependency on physical records and enhanced access to justice for litigants. The details of digitization of records, High Court-wise, as

provided by the eCommittee, are at Annexure-I.

(d): Under the e-Courts project, financial and infrastructural support is being provided to the High Courts for procurement of hardware, networking, connectivity, video-conferencing facilities and related digital infrastructure. The High Courts function as the implementing agencies, responsible for hardware procurement, maintenance, and upkeep. The e-Committee, Supreme Court of India provides policy inputs, while National Informatics Centre (NIC) handles software development and technical support. Funding is provided under the project based on demand received from respective High Courts and subject to the recommendations of the e-Committee, Supreme Court of India. The High Court-wise details of funds released under Phase III are at Annexure-II.

Further, the primary responsibility for the development of infrastructure facilities for district and subordinate courts rests with the State/UT Governments. To augment the resources of the States/UTs, the Central Government has been implementing a Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) for the Development of Infrastructure Facilities for Judiciary in the District and 3Subordinate courts. As on 31.12.2025, Rs. 12,461.28 crore has been released to the States/UTs since inception of the Scheme. During the current financial year 2025–26, an amount of Rs.

409.87 crore has been released to the States/UTs till 31.12.2025. 22,683 court halls and 20,029 residential units for judicial officers are available as on 31.12.2025, out of which, 486 court halls and 191 residential units have been constructed during the current financial year.

(e): Concerns relating to cybersecurity and data protection are regularly addressed through adoption of standard security protocols, role-based access controls, capacity-building initiatives, secure hosting environments, and compliance with applicable Government guidelines on information security. E-Courts applications at national level are hosted on NIC’s cloud infrastructure in compliance with cybersecurity norms prescribed by the Government from time to time. Further, cyber security training programmes were conducted for the technical teams and staff of High Courts and District courts in collaboration with Rashtriya Raksha University, covering digital forensics, Security Operations Centre (SOC) operations, and incident response using simulated real-world cyber-attacks providing practical experience.

(f): Phase III of the project envisions transforming Indian courts into digital and paperless courts by digitizing legacy and current case records, expanding video conferencing to all courts, jails, and selected hospitals, extending online courts beyond traffic violations, strengthening e- filing and e-payments system, creation of cloud-based data repository for storing digitized court records, and deployment of emerging technologies such as AI and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for case analysis and forecasting. These initiatives are being implemented in a phased manner under the guidance of the e-Committee, Supreme Court of India.

*** 4Annexure-I STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY OF RAJYA SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 1548 FOR 12.02.2026 REGARDING DIGITIZATION OF COURTS Details of digitization of court records in High Courts and District Courts till 31.12.2025:

S. Total Pages Digitized in Total Pages Digitized High Court No. High Court in District Courts 1 Allahabad 57,74,41,007 1,68,69,63,743 2 Andhra Pradesh 3,41,11,865 17,28,50,732 3 Bombay 8,90,63,956 22,07,485 4 Calcutta 5,95,17,135 0 5 Chhattisgarh 24,26,800 1,91,84,603 6 Delhi 23,46,18,073 10,48,83,922 7 Gauhati – Arunachal Pradesh 5,06,407 1,26,322 8 Gauhati – Assam 2,97,53,593 15,58,31,203 9 Gauhati – Mizoram 12,31,287 20,97,820 10 Gauhati – Nagaland 0 0 11 Gujarat 16,98,629 11,64,409 12 Himachal Pradesh 79,15,775 11,81,757 13 Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh 4,11,76,756 2,50,11,814 14 Jharkhand 3,01,84,408 96,24,854 15 Karnataka 5,14,20,668 4,63,47,270 16 Kerala 8,17,95,531 1,71,13,720 17 Madhya Pradesh 24,62,88,505 66,68,95,995 18 Madras 20,76,93,848 13,16,62,142 19 Manipur 58,56,075 57,36,785 20 Meghalaya 11,56,596 38,20,961 21 Orissa 5,33,13,761 17,36,02,357 22 Patna 2,40,49,339 2,39,56,123 23 Punjab & Haryana 29,46,04,020 62,82,06,241 24 Rajasthan 13,44,36,567 3,50,10,815 25 Sikkim 11,73,135 54,15,378 26 Telangana 12,85,86,477 7,61,42,250 27 Tripura 54,39,454 5,62,558 28 Uttarakhand 2,41,91,236 1,33,14,115 Total 2,36,96,50,903 4,00,89,15,374 (Source: eCommittee, SCI) 5Annexure- II STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY OF RAJYA SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 1548 FOR 12.02.2026 REGARDING DIGITIZATION OF COURTS Details of funds released under Phase III of the e-Courts project, High court-wise and year-wise:

(Rs. in crore) S. No. High Court 2023-24 2024-25 2025-26 1 Allahabad 95.87 51.78 119.92 2 Andhra Pradesh 25.44 31.74 15.81 3 Bombay 69.54 83.19 92.41 4 Calcutta 16.73 27.65 9.50 5 Chhattisgarh 16.27 24.17 39.11 6 Delhi 17.89 48.19 17.90 7 Gauhati (Arunachal Pradesh) 2.03 9.76 1.79 8 Gauhati (Assam) 24.97 33.85 3.65 9 Gauhati (Mizoram) 3.12 6.22 1.99 10 Gauhati, Kohima (Nagaland) 1.79 3.91 3.41 11 Gujarat 27.72 73.21 48.89 12 Himachal Pradesh 6.06 6.89 7.63 13 Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh 6.52 14.53 12.81 14 Jharkhand 10.59 29.22 7.65 15 Karnataka 32.37 67.40 48.22 16 Kerala 15.40 32.62 51.60 17 Madhya Pradesh 22.90 77.31 48.58 18 Madras 90.69 91.75 113.20 19 Manipur 11.12 7.54 2.16 20 Meghalaya 3.33 8.50 3.83 21 Orissa 6.77 53.24 16.09 22 Patna 32.43 89.55 57.61 23 Punjab And Haryana 14.58 26.01 10.01 24 Rajasthan 19.80 34.72 60.88 25 Sikkim 1.71 8.98 2.51 26 Telangana 22.03 28.57 28.91 6S. No. High Court 2023-24 2024-25 2025-26 27 Tripura 0.53 7.05 8.79 28 Uttarakhand 13.68 19.95 29.57 Total 611.88 997.49 864.43* * As on 09.02.2026

Note: In addition to the funds released to High Courts, Rs. 185.06 crore have been released to NIC for providing technical support, Rs 54.79 crore to BSNL for WAN (Wide Area Network) connectivity, Rs 7.51 crore to e-Committee, SCI under Change Management, Rs 0.28 crore to IIT Madras for development of e-Learning platform, and Rs 9.42 crore for miscellaneous expenditure (salary, office expenses, publicity, etc.).

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