AI to assist case distribution as 660 crore court records digitised: MoS Meghwal

The Centre is planning to introduce Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools in courts for case analysis and distribution as part of the ongoing digital transformation of the judiciary, the government informed the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Law and Justice Arjun Ram Meghwal said that under the e-Courts Mission Mode Project, more than 660.36 crore pages of court records have been digitised, while over 3.97 crore hearings have been conducted through video conferencing so far.

In a written reply, Meghwal said the government has significantly increased the budget for Phase-III (2023–2027) of the project to ₹7,210 crore, aiming to transform courts into digital and paperless institutions.

He added that AI and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technologies are being integrated into judicial workflows to assist in case analysis, defect identification, forecasting, and potentially improving case distribution systems.

Among the AI initiatives is an AI/ML-enabled defect identification module developed by the Supreme Court in collaboration with IIT Madras, and the Legal Research and Analysis Assistant (LegRAA) created by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) under the guidance of the e-Committee.

The minister said the project also includes creation of a cloud-based national repository for digitised court records, expansion of video conferencing facilities to courts, jails, and hospitals, and extending online courts beyond traffic violations.

To improve citizen services, 2,444 e-Sewa Kendras have been set up, while nearly 1.07 crore cases have been filed electronically through the e-Filing platform.

Live streaming of court proceedings has also expanded to four additional High Courts — Uttarakhand, Calcutta, Telangana, and Meghalaya — taking the total number of High Courts offering the facility to 11.

The Digital Courts platform now allows judges to access case documents, pleadings and evidence digitally, marking a major step towards a fully paperless court ecosystem, Meghwal added.

(This story was taken from syndicated feed and was only edited for style by Gujarat Samachar Digital team)