All district and subordinate courts to be digitally connected by March

NEW DELHI: By the end of March, all the district and subordinate courts will by digitally connected and all High Courts will have the latest information and communication technology infrastructure. The central government has set March 31 as deadline for completion of the project to computerise 14,249 district and subordinate courts and upgrade ICT infrastructure of the higher courts under the eCourts Integrated Mission Mode project.

The project was approved by the CCEA in February 2007, during the UPA-I regime. It entailed an expenditure of Rs 935 crore and was to be completed by 2014. As of December end, sites of 14,182 subordinate courts were ready for computerisation, LAN was installed at 13,606 courts, hardware at 13,436 courts and software at 13,323 courts.

Under the project, all the district and subordinate courts will be linked to the National Judicial Data Grid, a common repository of case records, where details of all decided cases are being uploaded and data pertaining to pending cases are being updated on a daily basis.

As on October 31, 2014 data in respect of more than 3.92 crore cases and more than 60 lakh orders/judgments pertaining district and subordinate Courts under the jurisdiction of 21 out of 24 HC have been uploaded on NJDG.