Legal Information Management and Briefing System

Basic information about litigations:

The government is a major litigant and it is a party to about 46% of the 13.4 crore cases pending in various courts in the country, ranging from service matters to indirect taxes.

What is the meaning of LIMBS (Legal Information Management and Briefing System)?

• LIMBS  is one of the progressive steps taken by the Ministry of Law and Justice in the direction of digital India.
• It is in line with Prime Minister’s vision of Digital India to digitalise the details of court cases and brings various stakeholders on a single platform.

What are the Benefits of LIMBS?

• LIMB will help in organizing otherwise scattered Information at one single database and also create a professional base available for expert advice
• It will help in reducing government litigations.
• LIMBS provides a low cost web technology access to all the stakeholders involved in a court case in a coordinated way whereby it provides inputs which are available seamlessly on 24×7 basis as per the defined access rules.
• In this way it is possible to know the various stages of a case and monitor its progress on a continued basis through an elaborate set of user friendly reports.
•  LIMBS aims to reduce financial burden, save time and bring efficiency in the working of various Departments of a Ministry.
• This will not only help to introduce transparency but also a sense of ownership among various stakeholders during the life cycle of a court case.
• It will help authorities to take ‘data driven decision making’ and to evaluate performance of various stake holders and to conduct legal audit.
• It is based on the  objective of achieving ‘minimum government and maximum governance’
• It will help authorities to take ‘data driven decision making’ and to evaluate performance of various stakeholders and to control legal audit.

What need to be done?

• The government must cease to be a compulsive litigant, and executive power should be made use to reduce the grievance of the future litigant.

What are the Government steps?

1. National Litigation Policy:

• The policy is based on the recognition that Government and its various agencies are the predominant litigants into courts and Tribunals in the country.
• Its aim is to transform government into an efficient and responsible litigant.

2. In June 2017, the Department of Justice proposed an online platform with neutral third party arbitration.
3. In 1991, the Cabinet Secretariat set up Committee on Disputes. The intention was the prevention of government litigation against government, without it being first examined by the committee.

How LIMBS help in reducing litigations?

• LIMBS Advocate Module is an easy to use web based tool to help advocates to organise, update court cases they are dealing with at one single place.
• This module helps advocates to change their details, update courts information, transfer cases which don’t belong to them and also raise bill and view its progress.
• Through UDL (Unique Document Locker) facility, advocates can upload documents related to a case to bring more transparency in decision making.
• To help advocates to organize the case details at one single place.