Context: Recently, to ensure the timely disposal of criminal cases, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) e-prosecution portal (which is a part of the Inter-Operable Criminal Justice System) has added a new feature that will also fix the accountability of government lawyers.

About Inter-Operable Criminal Justice System (ICJS) project

• It is a national platform for enabling integration of the main IT system used for the delivery of Criminal Justice in the country by five pillars namely.

• Objective: It seeks to enable the seamless transfer of data and information among different pillars of the criminal justice system, like courts, police, jails and forensic science laboratories, from one platform.

• This system would be made available through a dedicated and secure cloud-based infrastructure with high-speed connectivity.

This includes integration of the five pillars of the system

1. Police (through Crime and Criminal Tracking and Network Systems).

2. e-Forensics for Forensic Labs.

3. e-Courts for Courts.

4. e-Prosecution for Public Prosecutors.

5. e-Prisons for Prisons.

• Implementation: National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) will be responsible for the implementation of the project in association with the National Informatics Center (NIC). 

• The project will be implemented in collaboration with the States and Union Territories.

Significance of the project

• It will be a step towards ensuring effective and modern policing.

• It is going to be a major leap forward by digitizing the criminal justice records and making it accessible to law enforcement agencies, laboratories and courts.

• This will not only make it far more difficult for persons to escape the consequences of their actions, it will also ensure that none, either the guilty or the innocent, is forgotten and that justice is equally meted to all.

• It will not only save time but also make the system more robust and help to track criminals, solve crimes and make India a safer place.