Home Ministry develops e-Prosecution Module

Home Ministry develops e-Prosecution Module

• To ensure timely disposal of criminal cases, the Ministry of Home Affairs’ (MHA) e-prosecution portal has added a new feature that will also fix accountability of government lawyers.
  • The system will send alerts to senior officers whenever a public prosecutor seeks a stay in a criminal case more than twice.
  • The e-prosecution module is part of the Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS).

Inter-Operable Criminal Justice System (ICJS)

• It is a national platform that helps in integrating the nation’s primary IT system for criminal justice delivery.
• Five Pillars:
  • The ICJS project aims to connect the five pillars of the system which are:
    • Police (through Criminal and Crime Tracking and Network Systems),
    • e-Forensics for forensic labs,
    • e-Courts for courts,
    • e-Prosecution for public prosecutors,
    • e-Prisons for prisons.
• Implementing agency:
  • National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in collaboration with the National Informatics Centre (NIC). 
• Phases:
  • In Phase-I of the ICJS project (2018-2022), individual IT systems have been implemented and stabilized; also search of records have been enabled on these systems.
  • Under Phase-II (2022-23 to 2025-26), the system is being built on the principle of ‘one data one entry’ whereby data is entered only once in one pillar and the same is then available in all other pillars without the need to re-enter the data in each pillar.

Significance:

• Recently, the Supreme Court (SC) has expressed its views on Extra-Judicial Killings (EJK) in India, after an Encounter in Uttar Pradesh, stating that the right to life as a Fundamental Right enshrined in the Constitution and EJKs are a violation of this right.
• The SC also iterated that in recent years, there have been several cases of encounters and extra-judicial killings in India, which have raised concerns about the misuse of power by the police.

Practice Questions for Prelims

 Consider the following statements regarding e-prosecution portal :
1. The Ministry of Home Affairs’ (MHA) e-prosecution portal has added a new feature that will also fix accountability of government lawyers. 
2. The system will send alerts to senior officers whenever a public prosecutor seeks a stay in a criminal case more than twice.
3. The e-prosecution module is part of the Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS).

Which of the given statements is / are correct :
a) 1 and 2 only
b) 2 and 3 only
c) 1 and 3 only
d) All of the above

Ans. d)

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