“Justice delayed is justice denied” is one of the most frequently used statement in terms of legal systems across the country. People are a mute witness to the court processes, often spending their lifetime savings in unending cases. Pendency is an ever pervading dilemma mutant in the legal system stultifying the cause of Justice.” Normally, the cases are filed before courts, whenever the administration fails to discharge its duties according to the provisions of statute, rules and regulations made there under. The government departments have to face litigations filed by citizens, department officials, contractors and others from time to time during the regular course of working. Complying with the legal process, government is required to be in constant interaction with the Chief Standing Council/Government Advocate (CSC/GA) who represents the government in courts. The concerned department needs to give proper information concerning the matter before the court, to keep the CSC/GA informed of all aspects, and to ensure that an informed effective representation is made on its part. The main issue plaguing the legal system is pendency of cases which can be attributed to lengthy court procedures, lawyer’s tendency to drag cases and the fact that timelines are not known to and adhered to at various stages of court case flow. In government cases there is lack of effective administration and monitoring system to deal with it in a more effective manner. A study revealed that the major problem in government cases was the lack of communication & sharing of information between different entities working on the case. COCIS The Court Cases Information System (COCIS) provides a web based common platform to all the stake holders including Advocate General Office, High Court, State Government Department and the Petitioner. To introduce transparency in the system and ensure speedier disposal of cases various features of information technology have been adopted. Discussions were carried out with the different stake holders to put in place a simple and effective MIS that could benefit all. Wherever possible, manual processes were replaced with electronic processes and policies were adopted to have a more stringent monitoring mechanism. The completely automated system initiates as soon as the litigation is filed and latest technologies viz. email, SMS, mobile computing etc. have been integrated to share information instantly. The infrastructure for the project has already been provided to the field level offices and nodal officers have been appointed in all departments. The computer application is under direct monitoring of Advocate General (AG), Uttar Pradesh & Law Department, GoUP. All the notices are received and the details are entered at computerized counters of AG Office. The application supports automatic generation of notice number followed by automatic sending of short message through SMS and email to the concerned department. The Nodal Officer of the concerned department is supposed to take necessary action related to the notice/court case. He is also responsible for checking the details of fresh, daily & supplementary case lists. The details of contempt cases and other important cases are also available on the website. EARLIER SYSTEM Notices filed manually. Department not informed timely. CSC/GA is on manual mode whereas High Court is fully computerized. The Gap creates inefficiency in representing government cases. CSC/GA interactions with departments are poor. Many times information gets missed out. Law Department dependent on manual records for case tracking/contempt case management CA/RA filing COCIS - ADVANTAGE Electronic filing of notices on counters which are instantaneously available on website COCIS portal guarantees informing the department in time through emails, SMS. CSG/GA integrated with the High Court database to create instant awareness on the proceedings for the cases. Most of the activities at HC/GA Office get posted on portal related to cases Law Department accesses COCIS portal to know the current progress on anywhere-anytime basis OUTCOMES COCIS has been boon for all stakeholders. Timely intimation to the departments about their cases filed at High Court supports them to put proper documents in front of CSC/GA for filing Counter Affidavits and other documents in the court. Litigant is also benefited by speeding up the hearing at High Court. The Hon’ble Courts have also been able to dispose the cases early after implementation of the IT enabled system. The integration of AG Office with the High Court has provided the base for automating case listing and case status which are now available on portal. This has resulted in better monitoring and faster disposal of cases. The above table has shown a dynamic increase in the number of disposal of cases from 2008- 2011. Even the percentage of disposed cases has been raised from 57%to 66%. “With the help and support of NIC, Advocate General Office has been leveraging ICT, to reduce the pendency of Government Court Cases and filing of Affidavits. COCIS is another step in same direction, it acts as a central repository for information on court cases and has been instrumental in reducing pendency of government cases. I take the privilege to congratulate NIC and GoUP for their efforts in making this project successful.” JUSTICE D.K. ARORA Hon’ble Justice Shri. D.K. Arora played a key role in successful implementation of the portal during his posting as Additional Advocate General of GoUP. Hon’ble Justice Shri. A. Mateen also extended his kind support by allowing the sharing of High Court data to enrich the portal FILING (IN YEAR) TOTAL FILING (FOR THE YEAR) TOTAL DISPOSAL (FOR THE YEAR) % DISPOSAL 2011 2,82,536 36,03,223 23,75,402 66 2010 2,81,095 33,20,617 21,12,025 64 2009 2,70,022 30,39,522 18,28,723 60 2008 2,56,143 27,69,500 15,91,224 57 Rate of disposal of court cases after the implementation of COCIS from year 2008-2011. FOR MORE DETAILS CONTACT: NIC-High Court Computer Cell, Lucknow Bench Ph. 0522-2614624 Sanjeev.gahlaut@nic.in Anshu.rohatgi@nic.in Rajesh.tripathi@nic.in