SC data now onboard National Judicial Data Grid portal: CJI

Source: The post is based on the article “SC data now onboard National Judicial Data Grid portal: CJI”  published in Indian Express on 15th September 2023

What is the News?

The Chief Justice of India has announced that the Supreme Court is now “onboard” the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) Portal.

What is the National Judicial Data Grid(NJDG) Portal?

National Judicial Data Grid(NJDG) is a national repository of data relating to cases instituted, pending and disposed of by the courts across the country.

The portal contains a database of orders, judgments and case details of 18,735 District and subordinate Courts and High Courts.

Its key feature is that the data is updated in real-time and has granular data up to the Taluka level.

Developed by: National Informatics Centre (NIC) in close coordination with the in-house software development team of the Computer Cell, Registry of the Supreme Court with an interactive interface and analytics dashboard.

The portal was built as part of Phase II of the e-Courts project which is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme. 

How does the NJDG Portal help?

Firstly, NJDG works as a monitoring tool to identify, manage & reduce pendency of cases.

– Take, for instance, the Supreme Court data.For the year 2023, the total pendency of registered cases in SC is 64,854. But the Cases instituted last month were 5,412 while cases disposed of in the last month were 5,033. 

– This shows that the pendency in SC is largely due to legacy cases since the Court is currently disposing of approximately the same number of cases filed on an annual basis.

Secondly, it helps identify specific bottlenecks in judicial processes. For example, if the number of land disputes in a particular state shoots up, it helps policymakers look into whether the law needs to be strengthened.

Thirdly, it helps generate inputs related to particular areas of law.For example, to track cases related to land disputes, Land Records data of 26 States have been linked with NJDG.