National Judicial Data Grid

While over 1 lakh cases have been pending in India’s lower courts for over 30 years, nearly 5 lakh cases have been pending for 20 to 30 years, and another 28.7 lakhs have been pending for 10 to 20 years.

According to an analysis of data from the National Judicial Data Grid, this brings the total number of cases pending for more than a decade to 34.6 lakh.

What is the ‘National Judicial Data Grid’?

• A part of the on-going e-Courts Integrated Mission Mode Project, NJDG is a flagship project launched in 2015 and is implemented under the aegis of the e-Committee Supreme Court of India.
  • The e-Courts Mission Mode Project is a national e-Governance project (of the Department of Justice, Ministry of Law and Justice) for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) enablement of district and subordinate courts of the country.
  • The objective of the project is to provide designated services to litigants, lawyers and the judiciary through ICT enablement of courts, thus improving access to justice using technology.
  • The Project was conceptualised based on ‘The National Policy and Action Plan for Implementation of ICT in the Indian Judiciary – 2005’ of the e-Committee of the Supreme Court of India.
  • The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved the project in 2007, expanded its coverage in 2010 and extended the project’s duration in 2014.
• NJDG is a system for monitoring pendency and disposal of the cases in High Courts and Subordinate Courts.
• NJDG provides a comprehensive database of orders, judgements and case details of District and Subordinate Courts and High Courts.
• The statistics of pendency at National, State, District and at Individual Court level is available to anyone visiting the National Judicial Data Grid portal.

Features –

• NJDG provides the consolidated figures of pendency of cases in Judiciary.
• Statistical data is automatically updated daily.
• Pending Civil and Criminal Cases segregated into varied categories.
• Information pertaining to Institution and Disposal of cases is shown.
• Serves as National Judicial Data Warehouse.

Benefits –

• Works as a monitoring tool to identify, manage and reduce pendency of cases.
• Helps to provide timely inputs for making policy decisions to reduce delays in disposal of cases.
• Facilitates better monitoring of court performance and thus, serves as an efficient resource management tool.
• Promotes transparency and accountability in the system by displaying complete pendency and disposal of cases across the country in the public domain.
• NJDG has been instrumental for judicial planning, monitoring and remote administration by High Court judges, District Judges, and High Court Registry.
• NJDG is acknowledged as an innovation under the Ease of Doing Business initiative of the Government of India.