Govt comes up with centralised data on pending cases

The government has launched a network-centric project to streamline litigation-related data and make it available at a single point, to prevent delay in dealing with upcoming matters in the courts.
The Law Ministry had decided to set up a centralised data of pending cases where government is involved as a party.
The Legal Information Management and Briefing System (LIMBS) conceived by the Law Ministry can capture information pertaining to different courts and tribunals and categorise them into various sets of management information system reports for officials concerned to take action.
LIMBS can send reminders through SMS to officials to provide alerts about particular cases coming up for hearing.

The system will be modified based on the feedback of officials involved in sharing the data, official sources said.
It was conceived sometime in September last and as per the plan, it will be fully functional by the next financial year.

Law Secretary P K Malhotra has urged other Union Secretaries to appoint a joint secretary-level officer as the project coordinator to implement LIMBS.
"... This department (Legal Affairs) is mandated to give legal advice to all government departments on the issues raised by them and also advise them on litigation matters conducted on behalf of Union of India.
"However, the court cases are monitored by the concerned departments and there is no centralised system for collecting information with regard to pendency and status of these cases...Centralised data to this effect is not available," he wrote.

According to a status note on the National Litigation Policy pending before the Union Cabinet for approval, "government enjoys the dubious distinction of being the largest litigant in the courts involving a big draught on public exchequer."
Though there are no official estimates, the Law Ministry believes government is a party in 46 per cent of the cases being contested in various courts, including tribunals, in the country.
Most cases relate to service matters of employees or deficiency in service provided by government bodies.
Law Ministry handles several cases every month where the Department of Personnel and Training seeks to challenge judgments which go against the government and favours an employee. Law officers, including additional solicitor generals decide on whether such cases have to challenged or the judgment accepted.