SC's real-time data now available on National Judicial Data Grid: CJI

Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud on Thursday announced that the Supreme Court of India is 'onboard' with the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), which will now give real-time data regarding the pendency of cases.

The CJI said the step was taken to bring in transparency and accountability and the platform will aid in tracking of pendency of cases.

"It is a historic day. It is a unique platform that is developed by the NIC and in house team of the Supreme Court. Now, at the click of a button you can see real-time information on the pendency of cases, year-wise, total pendency of registered and unregistered cases, and number of cases decided quorum-wise," he said.

The CJI said the onboarding of the Supreme Court data on the NJDG portal under the court's 'open data policy' is a step "to bring transparency and accountability in the judicial domain."

The entire database shall be periodically updated on the NJDG portal, he said.

"The NJDG portal is a national repository of data relating to cases instituted, pending and disposed of by the courts across the length and breadth of the country. Now at a click of a button, one may access case-related information, statistics such as institution, pendency and disposal of cases, case types, and year-wise break-up of the Supreme Court of India," the CJI elaborated.

In the courtroom, the CJI also displayed the webpage and graph on the NJDG related to the data of the apex court, saying, "At a glance, the webpage gives us the current year's pendency of civil and criminal cases, total pendency of registered and unregistered cases. And registered cases are those which are still defective and defects are not cured by the lawyers yet."

Since the launch of the NJDG portal, the benefits of the portal can be summed up in increased transparency, accountability and responsibility, improved efficiency, increased coordination, informed decision-making, optimum deployment of resources and manpower, a single source of data, and huge potential for high-quality research work.

The NJDG-SCI portal can be accessed through the website of the Supreme Court of India by clicking on the tab button - https://njdg.ecourts.gov.in/scnjdg/

"With the Supreme Court of India onboarding the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) portal, the flagship project of the e-Courts project completes the full circle. Now we have all three tiers of the Indian judiciary on the NJDG portal. NJDG is recognised as a significant innovation under the ease of doing business initiative of the government of India," the apex court said in its statement.

Earlier, only data from High Courts and district courts across the country were available on NJDG.

NJDG has been developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) in close coordination with the in-house software development team of the Computer Cell, Registry with an interactive interface and analytics dashboard, said the Supreme Court in the statement.

Supreme Court stated that for the year 2023 - the total pendency of registered cases is 64,854 and the total pendency of unregistered cases is 15,490. Cases instituted in last month were 5,412 and cases disposed of in the last month were 5,033.