e-Courts Services in Uttar Pradesh — Case Status, e-Filing, and Virtual Hearings Explained

This article is for educational and legal awareness purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice or solicitation. Please consult a qualified advocate for advice on specific legal matters.

The eCourts Project, implemented under the aegis of the e-Committee of the Supreme Court of India and funded by the Department of Justice, Ministry of Law and Justice, has progressively digitised the functioning of district and subordinate courts as well as High Courts across the country. In Uttar Pradesh, this means that a litigant, advocate, or member of the public can check the status of a case, file pleadings online, pay court fees digitally, and — in appropriate matters — appear before a court by video conference, without needing to be physically present at the court complex for every step.

This article explains the main components of the eCourts ecosystem as they apply across Uttar Pradesh’s district courts and the Allahabad High Court: the eCourts Services portal and mobile app for case status, the e-Filing platform, the ePay digital payment system, the National Service and Tracking of Electronic Processes (NSTEP) for e-summons, video-conferencing hearings, and the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG).

eCourts Services Portal — Checking Case Status

The eCourts Services Portal, available at services.ecourts.gov.in, is a centralised gateway that provides case-related information for district and taluka courts across India, including all districts of Uttar Pradesh. The portal allows a user to search for a case using several methods:

CNR number — a unique 16-character alphanumeric Case Number Record assigned to every case filed in a district or taluka court. Entering the CNR number is the most direct way to retrieve a case, since it avoids the ambiguity that can arise from similar party names or case numbers across different courts.
Case number and case type — for a user who does not have the CNR number but knows the registration details of the case.
Party name or advocate name — useful where only the names of the litigants or the appearing advocate are known.
Filing number, FIR number, or Act — additional search parameters available depending on the nature of the case.

Once a case is located, the portal displays the case stage, the next date of hearing, the case history, and, where uploaded, copies of orders and judgments. The portal also offers separate search modules for cause lists (the daily list of cases listed before a particular court), court orders, caveat search, and the location of court complexes.

eCourts Services Mobile App

The eCourts Services mobile application, developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) under the same project, mirrors the search functionality of the web portal and adds a few features suited to mobile use. A litigant or advocate can search using CNR number, party name, advocate name, FIR number, case type, or the relevant Act. The app also includes a QR-code scanning feature: a QR code printed on case-related documents can be scanned to pull up the case details directly, without manually typing the CNR number. A “History of the Case” view within the app shows all events and orders relating to a case from its first hearing to its current status, and the app draws on National Judicial Data Grid data for near real-time updates. The app is available on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.

e-Filing — Filing Cases and Documents Online

The e-Filing system allows advocates and litigants to file plaints, written statements, replies, and applications electronically before District Courts and High Courts, including those in Uttar Pradesh, instead of filing physical paper copies at the filing counter. The current version of the platform (e-Filing 3.0) is accessed through a login portal that requires the user to select their state and user type — advocate, litigant, government pleader, clerk, government authority, or institutional litigant — before signing in with a registered username, password, and captcha. New users can register directly on the portal.

Key features of the e-Filing platform include:

Filing cases and applications online, with the option to upload pleadings as PDF documents.
Pleading templates, which allow an advocate to prepare a plaint or application from a standard format rather than starting from a blank document.
Online vakalatnama submission, through which a client can digitally authorise an advocate to appear on their behalf, and the advocate can accept the vakalatnama electronically.
e-Signing, enabling multiple stakeholders — including the client — to digitally sign a single document from their own login.
Online payment of court fee, integrated with the ePay system described below, so that court fee can be paid at the time of filing rather than separately at a treasury counter.
Oath recording for affidavits, and portfolio management tools that let a registered user track the status of documents filed under their account.

The platform is designed to be bilingual, offering both English and the relevant local language, so that it is accessible to a wider base of advocates and litigants.

ePay — Paying Court Fees, Deposits, and Fines Online

The ePay portal, accessible at pay.ecourts.gov.in, is the eCourts digital payment system for paying court fee, judicial deposit, fine, and penalty amounts online. For an existing case, court fee can be paid using the CNR number, case number, or filing number, while a new filing can generate its own payment reference. The portal is integrated with state-specific payment gateways — such as the treasury systems used by different states — and is available 24x7 to anyone with net banking access to a listed bank; a payment-across-bank-counter option is also provided for those without net banking. On successful payment, the portal generates an e-challan that can be downloaded or saved as proof of payment, which can then be attached to the filing on the e-Filing platform or produced before the court.

NSTEP — Electronic Service of Summons and Notices

The National Service and Tracking of Electronic Processes (NSTEP), launched on 27 September 2019, is a centralised system for the service of civil court processes — summons, notices, and other process documents — that replaces the traditional practice of a bailiff manually delivering paper processes and reporting back on plain paper. NSTEP comprises a web application used by courts and a companion mobile app used by process servers and bailiffs. When a process server serves a document, the NSTEP mobile app captures the GPS location of service, a photograph of the recipient or premises, the recipient’s signature, and, where service could not be effected, the reason recorded on the spot. This data is transmitted to the central NSTEP application and onward to the court’s Case Information System, allowing the court and the parties to track the status of service of a summons or notice electronically rather than waiting for a paper report to be filed. The system also supports service of process across district and state boundaries, and the mobile app is available in Hindi in addition to English.

Virtual Hearings — Video-Conferencing Rules for Courts in Uttar Pradesh

Following the framing of Model Rules for Video Conferencing for Courts by a sub-committee constituted by the e-Committee of the Supreme Court in 2020, the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, exercising its rule-making power under Articles 225 and 227 of the Constitution of India, framed the Rules for Video Conferencing for Courts in the State of Uttar Pradesh, 2020. These rules were notified in the Uttar Pradesh Gazette and came into effect on 27 November 2020. They govern the conduct of hearings by video conference before courts in Uttar Pradesh, including matters such as the procedure for a party or witness to appear remotely, identification and authentication of participants, recording of proceedings conducted through video conference, and safeguards to ensure that a video-conferencing hearing carries the same procedural protections as an in-person hearing. Whether a particular case or a particular hearing is conducted through video conference remains a matter for the concerned court to decide, applying these rules and any subsequent directions or standard operating procedures issued for the purpose.

National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG)

The National Judicial Data Grid, at njdg.ecourts.gov.in, is a national online repository of case data — both pending and disposed — drawn from district and taluka courts, High Courts, and the Supreme Court under the eCourts Project. It is updated on a near real-time basis and allows a user to view case pendency and disposal statistics by state, district, and court, including how long cases have been pending, and category-wise breakdowns such as cases filed by women litigants or senior citizens. Beyond individual case lookup (which is handled through the eCourts Services portal), NJDG functions primarily as a data and monitoring tool, used by court administrators, policymakers, and researchers to track case pendency and disposal trends across the judicial system, including the district courts and the High Court in Uttar Pradesh.

eCourts Project Phase III

The digital infrastructure described above is being expanded under Phase III of the eCourts Mission Mode Project, approved by the Union Cabinet in September 2023 as a Central Sector Scheme with a financial outlay of Rs. 7,210 crore. Phase III is oriented around the digitisation of court records (including legacy records), universalisation of e-filing and e-payment through e-Sewa Kendras at court complexes, expansion of video-conferencing facilities, and the development of a unified technology platform intended to provide a seamless, paperless interface between courts, litigants, and other stakeholders. As this phase is rolled out, the specific services and interfaces available to litigants and advocates in Uttar Pradesh — including those described in this article — are expected to continue evolving.

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