Question : Multilingual App of the Supreme Court

a) the time by which the new app ‘Supreme Court Vidhik Anuvaad Software’ launched by the Supreme Court of India is likely to become functional;
b) the number of languages in which the app is going to provide updates about the legal proceedings;
c) whether the provisions are also in place to make the information accessible to the visually impaired;
d) if so, the details thereof and if not, the reasons therefor; and
e) whether any other new digitization initiative is being taken to increase the access to legal information by all the citizens of the country including print disabled citizens in near future and if so, the details thereof?

ANSWER

MINISTER OF LAW AND JUSTICE, COMMUNICATIONS AND ELECTRONICS & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
(SHRI RAVI SHANKAR PRASAD)
(a) to (e): A statement is laid on the Table of the House.
STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARTS (a) TO (e) OF THE LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION No. 52 DUE FOR ANSWER ON 05.02.2020.
(a) With a view to enable common people of India to understand the judgments of Supreme Court in easy manner in local languages, SUVAS (Supreme Court Vidhik Anuvaad Software) has been developed as a path breaking initiative by the Supreme Court of India in collaboration and with technical support from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India aided by experts from IIT and IIIT.
This pilot development of SUVAS is at present in testing, training and refinement phase in 18 High Courts in the country. The work covers translating judgments related to cases arising under the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of India in relation to the following subject categories:
1. Labour matters;
2. Rent Act matters;
3. Land Acquisition and Requisition matters;
4. Service matters;
5. Compensation matters;
6. Criminal matters;
7. Family Law matters;
8. Ordinary Civil matters;
9. Personal Law matters;
10. Religious and Charitable Endowments matters;
11. Simple money and Mortgage matters;
12. Eviction under the Public Premises(Eviction) Act matters;
13. Land Laws and Agriculture Tenancies; and
14. Matters relating to Consumer Protection.

The translation is functional from English language into Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu languages.
Once the pilot phase of testing, training and refinement, as mentioned above, is completed, and the facility becomes functional, it would be rolled out fully in the relevant High Courts.
(b) The Official Multilingual Mobile App of Supreme Court of India, provides updates about the legal proceedings in six languages i.e. English, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu.
(c) & (d) At present the Official Mobile App of Supreme Court is not separately equipped with accessibility of information to visually impaired.
(e) Through computerization of 16,845 District & Subordinate Courts and ICT enablement under the eCourts Project Phase-II, several services have been provided to litigants, lawyers and Judiciary which facilitate expeditious delivery of judicial services. eCourts services such as details of case registration, cause list, case status, daily orders & final judgments are available to litigants and advocates through eCourts web portal, Judicial Service Centers (JSC) in all computerized courts, eCourts Mobile App, email service, SMS push & pull services. Integration of eCourts Services through Common Service Centers (CSCs) has been successfully completed. eCourt CNR Service has been enabled through Digital Seva Portal in all CSC locations across the country. National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) for District & Subordinate Courts, created as an online platform under the Project, provides information relating to judicial proceedings/decisions of computerized district and subordinate courts of the country. Currently, all stakeholders including Judicial Officers can access case status information in respect of over 12.97 crore pending and disposed cases and more than 11.15 crore orders / judgments pertaining to these computerized courts. Video Conferencing facility has been enabled between 3240 court complexes & 1272 corresponding jails.