New Delhi: India’s judicial system is increasingly embracing artificial intelligence (AI) to improve efficiency, transparency and access to justice, with several AI-powered tools being developed and tested under the e-Courts Project, the government informed Parliament on Wednesday.
According to the Ministry of Law and Justice, technologies such as AI, machine learning, optical character recognition and natural language processing are being integrated into court software for tasks including translation, automated filing, intelligent scheduling, case information management and litigant communication through chatbots.
A key initiative is the Legal Research Analysis Assistant (LegRAA), developed under the Supreme Court’s e-Committee, which is designed to support judges in legal research, document analysis and decision-making. The judiciary has also rolled out Digital Courts 2.1, offering integrated judgment databases, document annotation, automated drafting templates, voice-to-text dictation and translation tools to help judges move towards paperless courts.
In collaboration with IIT Madras, the Supreme Court has also developed AI and ML tools linked to the electronic filing system to identify defects in filings, with prototypes for automated defect curing and metadata extraction currently under testing. Another tool, SUPACE (Supreme Court Portal Assistance in Court Efficiency), remains at an experimental stage and aims to assist judges by analysing case facts and identifying relevant precedents.
The government, however, underlined that the use of AI remains limited to controlled pilot projects to ensure “responsible, secure and practical adoption”. Any wider operational framework will be governed by policies and rules framed by individual High Courts, it said.
Alongside AI pilots, the third phase of the e-Courts Project has significantly expanded digital infrastructure. Nearly all court complexes are now connected through wide area networks, while virtual courts, e-filing portals, video conferencing facilities and mobile applications have scaled up sharply. Courts have digitised hundreds of crores of pages of records, conducted over 3.8 crore online hearings and processed electronic payments worth over ₹1,200 crore in court fees.
The update was shared by Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Law and Justice Arjun Ram Meghwal in the Rajya Sabha, highlighting the government’s push to modernise the judiciary while balancing innovation with institutional safeguards.