Government Accelerates Digital Transformation of Judiciary Under eCourts Phase III to Reduce Case Pendency

The e‑Courts Phase‑III (2023‑2027), approved on 13 Sept 2023 with an outlay of Rs 7,210 crore, aims to create paper‑less courts through large‑scale digitisation, virtual hearings and emerging technologies such as AI, analytics and OCR. Under the programme, 2,977 court complexes have bandwidth of 10‑100 Mbps; 1.21 crore cases have been filed via e‑filing; e‑payments have processed court‑fee transactions worth Rs 1,594 crore and fines of Rs 97 crore; CIS 4.0 is operational in all courts, receiving more than 35.57 lakh FIRs and 38.36 lakh charge‑sheets digitally. Over 4.15 crore hearings have been conducted via video conferencing, 734 crore pages of records digitised, and a Judicial Digital Trustworthy Repository established. Additional initiatives include the JustIS app (22,534 downloads), 31 virtual traffic courts, 2,515 e‑Sewa Kendras, the AI‑based LegRAA tool and the S3WaaS platform hosting 730 court websites. Fast‑track special courts (775 courts, including 398 e‑POCSO courts) have disposed 387,481 cases, and arrears committees have been set up in all 25 High Courts and District Courts.