Digitalization Of Commercial Justice in India: A Tribunal Blindspot

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Digitalization Of Commercial Justice in India: A Tribunal Blindspot

I. Abstract

India in the past few years has spent thousands of crores on digitalisation of courts through e-filling, virtual hearings or case management systems in District Courts, High Courts and the Supreme Court through the e-Courts mission mode project1. Yet an important segment of commercial justice has been consciously kept out of the system of digitalization architecture – Tribunals.

In July 2024, the Supreme Court refused to maintain a plea to include Tribunals in e-Courts and NJDG framework, stating funding constraints and issues with administrative sanctions as the reasons. This feels contradictory with Courts own standing²as stated in Madras Bar Association 2014 judgement, which categorises Tribunals as quasi judicial bodies performing judicial functions and are subject to constitutional guarantees of judicial independence.³The blog argues that the current form of digitalization which targets ‘Courts only’ misreads the integrated nature of commercial justice in India, where tribunals as NCLT, SAT, ITAT and APTEL handle a high volume of commercial disputes.

II. Introduction

The digital transformation of courts in India has been one of the most significant government reforms of the early 21st century. Starting from 2005, the eCourts Mission Mode Project has focused on the regular hierarchy of courts. Over its three phases, the project has produced key tools for public information as the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG). Yet such progress is structurally confined to courts, even when tribunals such as NCLT have recovered around 4.5 Lakh Crore from CIRP procedures4. This shows that Tribunals come at par with their share of commercial adjudication. The continuing exclusion of tribunals from a unified digital architecture raises the question: Is digitalisation a courts only upgrade or a systemic duty towards all justice delivery institutions equally?

From ‘Court Only’ Digitalization to Justice View

The e-Courts mission mode project was introduced as a part of “National Policy and
Action Plan for Implementation of Information and Communication Technology in the

Indian Judiciary-2005” by the eCommittee of the Supreme Court of India.5 It was designed expressly for courts: District Courts, High Courts and Supreme Court. Its core objectives were to interlink courts, ICT enabling, enhancing judicial productivity and to make the justice delivery system accessible, transparent and accountable.6 The National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) sits at the centre of this vision as a providing live dashboard of pendency and disposal data across the courts.7
In July 2024, a PIL was filed to bring quasi-judicial tribunals, such as Armed Forces Tribunal and National Green Tribunal under the scope of NJDG, which the Supreme Court refused to do8. The bench of CJI DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra stated that:

● NJDG is part of the e‑Courts project and does not cover tribunals at all

● Approximately Rs. 7,000 crore had been allocated for “courts and not tribunals”

● There was no administrative sanction to extend the project to tribunals.

However, the Court had permitted the petitioner to approach the Central Government instead for tribunal digitalisation. This poses a contradictory stand from a point of justice led system where at one hand in e‑Committee’s Phase III document- “Digital Courts Vision & Roadmap” states that Phase III envisions digital courts that deliver justice as a service to all, beyond simply replicating offline processes digitally, while on the other hand an important cluster which deals with majority of commercial disputes (Company Law, Insolvency, Taxation,Electricity ) and has been given title of quasi judicial bodies has been left outside the project by design.9

In multiple judgements as L Chandra Kumar v. Union of India10, Union of India v. R. Gandhi11 and Madras Bar Association cases12, the tribunal has been compared to the High Court and as they have replaced the High Court’s jurisdiction should have equivalent standards of independence, competence, and judicial functioning.

Tribunal Digitalization:
Digitalization of tribunals is currently driven by 3 segments-

a. Overviewing Ministries (Example- Law and Justice for ITAT, Corporate Affairs for NCLT)

b. Sector regulators (Example- SEBI for SAT, IBBI for NCLT)

c. Judicial and Administrative Initiatives

This results in unequal implementation of digitalization. The current scenario across four critical commercial tribunals covering a heavy case load of commercial disputes can be mapped as follows-

Parameter	NCLT	SAT	APTEL	ITAT
Parent Administrative Ministry	Ministry of Corporate Affairs	Ministry of Finance	Ministry of Power	Ministry of Law and Justice
E-filling	Mandatory, 53,204 Registered Users and 550 e-filed Cases13. Available e-filling portal with user manual, video instructions and FAQs.	Functional Portal, mandatory for SEBI related Appeals¹⁴	Mandatory registration since May 2025, SOP published( Nov, 2024), however the procedural requirement is that parties must submit hard copies of documents within 7 days of online filing.	Mandatory with digital signatures and faceless scheme launched15. Role based e-filling along with FAQs and appeal dashboard
Virtual Hearing	SOP issued (Dec 2021); suspended in Kolkata (July 2025) due to cyber breach¹⁶.	Hybrid model adopted	Hybrid model with infrastructure upgrades in progress and instructed to continue virtual hearings¹⁷	Faceless hearings mandated and video conferencing enabled
Case Management System	CIS integration and cause lists online¹⁸ with updates case	Online cause lists and case status available, CMS	CIS integration and cause lists online²⁰.	Faceless portal with automated allocation²¹. Appeal
	status.	depth less visible publicly.¹⁹		dashboards, user logins, and integrated appeal tracking indicate a functioning CMS.
Adoption Barriers	Cybersecurity vulnerabilities²²	Low stakeholder awareness and SEBI interface issues23	Infrastructure Gaps with only one bench	Digital literacy deficit24
Observation	Extensive use of virtual/hybrid hearings across benches, despite operational and security challenges.	Basic case status tracking. Public e-filling workflow documentation is relatively less if compared to other institutions. Public data on usage of virtual hearings is limited.	While functional but relatively new. CMS improving alongside e-filing rollout.	Mature portal with heavy user interaction.

This table illustrates that, while tribunals are notionally digital, there is no common design language such as SOPs, no unified data architecture, and no shared performance benchmarks.

I am of the view that with the absence of a unified e‑Courts umbrella for tribunals, each tribunal is left to its own, often guided by its parent ministry rather than any common architecture. ITAT’s digital maturity is driven by the Ministry of Law and Justice’s support and a large user base of tax practitioners who have demanded modern tools. NCLT’s e‑filing push comes from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, aligned with the broader insolvency reform agenda. APTEL’s hybrid hearings reflect power sector modernisation rather than a tribunal wide digitalisation vision. SAT has lagged precisely because it sits at the intersection of multiple stakeholders (SEBI, Ministry of Finance and market participants).

Conclusion

This fragmentation of digitalization of tribunals to parent ministries imposes real costs as every tribunal has separately spent on parts of digitalization instead of a unified way. Litigants face variable experiences depending on which tribunal hears their case. Worst of all, it gives a message that some forms of adjudication deserve the modern state’s investment in efficiency, while others do not, contradicting the Court’s own narrative about the tribunal’s constitutional standing.

I believe the remedy requires the judiciary to take cognizance of the problem and to insist that digitalisation is a justice system project, not a courts only project. This may require negotiation with the executive on funding and administrative arrangements, but that is exactly what judicial leadership should do when constitutional guarantees are at stake. The barrier is not technology but is political will. Also it is the Supreme Court’s duty to oversee all judicial activity in the country and take steps for its improvement. But while one part is significantly growing and adding AI to its case management, other parts which in this case are tribunals struggle to integrate a working case management software.

Until the Court aligns its institutional design choices with its constitutional rhetoric on tribunals, the digital transformation of Indian commercial justice will remain incomplete.

Digitalization Of Commercial Justice in India: A Tribunal Blindspot

Table of Contents

I. Abstract

II. Introduction

From ‘Court Only’ Digitalization to Justice View

Conclusion

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