New Delhi, Aug 1 (IANS) Under the e-Courts Project Phase III, 213.29 crore pages in the High Courts and 307.89 crore pages in the District Courts have been digitised till June 30, 2025, the Lok Sabha was informed on Friday.

Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Law and Justice Arjun Ram Meghwal, in a written reply, said that the e-Courts project is being implemented as an integrated Mission Mode Project since 2007 for the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) development of the Indian Judiciary as part of the National e-Governance Plan.

Phase III of the e-Courts Project (for the period from 2023 to 2027) was approved in September 2023 with an outlay of Rs 7,210 crore, he said.

Under Phase-III, several steps have been taken to improve the court management processes and digitise the services for the various stakeholders, including lawyers, litigants and judges.

One of the components of the e-Courts Project Phase III is the scanning, digitisation and digital preservation of case records, for which an amount of Rs 2,038.40 crore has been earmarked.

A software has been developed for the preservation of judicial records of High Courts and District Courts. Further, Digital Courts 2.1 software has been developed to aid courts in functioning in a paperless mode.

The e-Filing system (version 3.0) has been rolled out with upgraded features for lawyers to access and upload documents related to the cases from any location. In addition, the e-Payment system has been launched for hassle-free transfer of fees.

Also, the National Service and Tracking of Electronic Processes (NSTEP) is a significant step towards technology-enabled process serving and issuing of summons.

Besides, a Judgment Search portal has been started with features such as search by Bench, Case Type, Case Number, Year and Petitioner/Respondent Name.

This facility is being provided free of cost to all. In order to facilitate easy and hassle-free access to citizen-centric services, 1814 eSewa Kendras (Facilitation Centres) have been established across the country. In addition, 29 Virtual Courts are functioning across 21 States/UTs for trying traffic-related offences.

The MoS said the Department of Justice has been implementing the Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) for Development of Infrastructure Facilities for the judiciary since 1993-94 to augment the resources of the State Governments in a prescribed fund sharing pattern.

There are five components under the Scheme, namely court halls, residential quarters, lawyers’ halls, digital computer rooms and toilet complexes.

A sum of Rs 12,101.89 crore has been released under the scheme since its inception, out of which Rs 8,657.59 crore (71.54 per cent) has been released since 2014-15.

From 15,818 court halls and 10,211 residential units in the year 2014, the number of available court halls and residential units has increased to 22,372 (41.43 per cent increase) and 19,851 (94.40 per cent increase), respectively.

–IANS

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