Jammu: Nearly 3.80 lakh cases are pending in different courts including High Court in the Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh while as utilization of funds sanctioned under e-Courts Project Phase-III is not up to the mark.
This has been revealed by the Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Law and Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Arjun Ram Meghwal in response to a question in the Lok Sabha regarding backlog of cases in the States and Union Territories.
Quoting information available on National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) as on November 30, 2024, the Minister informed the Parliament that 3,32,802 cases are pending in the District and Subordinate Courts in Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and 1456 cases are pending in the Union Territory of Ladakh.
Likewise, a total of 45,464 cases are pending in the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.
In response to a question regarding swift disposal of pending cases, the Minister said, “the disposal of pending cases in time bound manner is within the exclusive domain of the judiciary. However, the Government is committed towards facilitating an ecosystem for expeditious disposal of cases by judiciary and reducing pendency as mandated under Article 21 of the Constitution”.
“To this end, the Government set up the National Mission for Justice Delivery and Legal Reforms in 2011 with the twin objectives of increasing access by reducing delays and arrears in the system and enhancing accountability through structural changes and by setting performance standards and capacities”, he said.
According to the Minister, the Mission has been pursuing a coordinated approach for phased liquidation of arrears and pendency in judicial administration which inter-alia involves improved infrastructure for courts including computerization, increase in strength of subordinate judiciary, re-engineering of court procedure for quick disposal of cases and emphasis on human resource development.
As per the reply of the Minister regarding implementation of e-Courts Project, an amount of Rs 18,98,11,200 was sanctioned and released for Jammu and Kashmir under Phase-II of the project by the Supreme Court of India and an amount of Rs 18,98,05,544 was utilized.
Under Phase-III of the e-Courts Project, an amount of Rs 15,37,18,800 was sanctioned/released to Jammu and Kashmir during the financial year 2023-24 and against this an amount of Rs 6,52,38,800 was utilized. Likewise, an amount of Rs 6,17,43,526 was released during the current financial year (2024-25) and in the reply utilization has been shown as zero.
The e-Courts Mission Mode Project is under implementation for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) development of the Indian judiciary. The Department of Justice, Government of India, is implementing e-Courts Project in close coordination with the e-Committee of the Supreme Court in decentralized manner through the respective High Courts.
The Phase-I of the project was implemented during 2011-15 and focused on the basics of computerization like setting up computer hardware, ensuring internet connectivity and operationalizing the e-Courts platform.
The Phase-II of the project was implemented from 2015-2023 with focus on ICT enablement of District and Subordinate Courts and various citizen centric initiatives. The Phase-III (2023-2027) was approved by the Union Cabinet in September 2023 with an outlay of Rs 7210 crore, which is over four times the funding for Phase-II.
The Phase-III envisages various new digital initiatives such as establishment of digital and paperless courts that aim to bring court proceedings under a digital format, digitization of court records (both legacy and pending cases), expansion of video-conferencing facilities to courts, jails and hospitals, use of emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence and its subsets like Optical Character Recognition etc for analysis of case pendency and forecasting future litigation.
As far as disposal of cases by Fast Track Special Courts since their inception is concerned, the Minister’s reply reveals that there are four such courts in J&K and these courts have disposed of 242 cases till October 31, 2024.
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