Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud on Thursday announced that the Supreme Court is now “onboard” the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) portal, a national repository of data relating to cases instituted, pending and disposed of by courts across the country.
Terming it a “historic” development, the CJI said, “Onboarding of Supreme Court data on NJDG portal under the open data policy is a step on our part to bring transparency and accountability in the judicial domain.”
He pointed out that it is a flagship project of the e-Courts initiative and that with the availability of SC data on it, “completes the full circle” since now “we have all three tiers of Indian judiciary on NJDG portal”.
It is also recognised as a significant innovation under the Centre’s ease of doing business initiative, an official statement said. The CJI said NJDG has been developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) in close coordination with the in-house software development team of the SC Registry’s computer cell with an interactive interface and analytics dashboard. The entire database will be periodically updated on the NJDG portal on a real-time basis, he said.
The CJI said that one can now access case-related information, statistics such as institution, pendency and disposal of cases, case types and year-wise break-up of the SC at the click of a button.
The statement noted that since its launch, the NJDG portal has increased transparency, brought in accountability and responsibility, improved efficiency, increased coordination, helped informed decision-making and optimum deployment of resources and manpower. Besides being a single source of data, it has huge potential for high-quality research work, it added.
The NJDG-SC portal can be accessed through the Supreme Court website, it was stated.
Referring to the data of year-wise pendency of cases, the CJI said the apex court has less than a hundred cases pending before 2000 and it gives data tool to the Chief Justice to re-organise work and dispose of the oldest cases.
Pointing to disposal figures, he said that in July this year, when the courts were on vacation, 5,500 cases were disposed of, as against 3,115 new cases that were instituted. He said “fresh lawyer minds and fresh judges“ could be the reason for the high disposal rate.