District, subordinate courts not updating National Judicial Data Grid

The government, after having monitored working of subordinate judiciary across the country, has come to know that subordinate courts are not updating the database on the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG).

The daily progress of the cases and additional information is supposed to be uploaded on the NJDG by local courts on a regular basis.

It was found that at least 1,000 district and subordinate courts were not updating data at regular intervals of time, according to a Times of India report.

This analysis, not limited to just the updating of databases, also takes into account the performances of the judges in lower courts.

The NJDG was started by the government a few years ago in association with the Supreme Court to bring transparency in judicial proceedings of courts and to cut down their backlog of cases.

The NJDC gives a report of each court on cases filed, disposed of, under objection and status of those pending for more than two years, five years or ten years. It also keeps a database and information on cases filed by women and senior citizens, and their progress in the courts.

Gujarat was on top of the list of states not updating their NJDG database, where 184 district and subordinate courts were found to be defaulting.

The second phase of the e-courts project, which is being monitored by the SC E-committee, the government has started giving unique identification numbers to all judges, over 16,000 in the subordinate judiciary and 650 in higher judiciary.

These judges will have to give details of the nature of their case on an everyday basis on the website’s log sheet. This is, however, still in the middle of being implemented and as of now, there is no efficient way to track the past performances of a judge, once he moves from one court to another.