Criminal Justice System's Digital Push: ICJS Full Roll-Out by 2027
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Article summary
India is targeting a full roll-out of the Integrated Criminal Justice System (ICJS) by 2027, which will create an end-to-end digital workflow connecting police, courts, prisons, prosecution, and forensic laboratories on a single interoperable platform. ICJS is a flagship initiative under the Ministry of Home Affairs, originally conceived under the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) project and subsequently expanded to cover the entire criminal justice chain. The platform will store all data on MeghRaj, the Government of India's sovereign cloud infrastructure operated by NIC, ensuring data sovereignty and reducing dependence on private cloud vendors. The initiative gains urgency following the enactment of the three new criminal laws — Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam — which mandate digital processes including electronic FIRs, video-recorded trials, and digital evidence. For UPSC aspirants, ICJS sits at the intersection of GS2 governance, GS3 technology, and GS4 ethics of surveillance and data privacy.
What this tests
Sample questions — answers revealed after test
Q1. Which of the following correctly identifies the nodal agency for implementing the Integrated Criminal Justice System (ICJS) and the cloud platform on which it is hosted?
Q2. A law student argues: 'The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) 2023 introduces digital processes like electronic FIRs and video-conferencing for trials, but these provisions will remain largely unoperationalisable at scale without a separate enabling infrastructure.' Which of the following best identifies the infrastructure the student is referring to, and the law that BNSS replaced?
Q3. Consider the following statements about the Integrated Criminal Justice System (ICJS) and its legal-institutional ecosystem: 1. ICJS integrates five pillars — Police, Courts, Prisons, Prosecution, and Forensics — with the Forensics component operating through a system called EFTS (Electronic Forensic Tools System). 2. CCTNS, launched in 2009 under the 12th Five-Year Plan as a Mission Mode Project under NeGP, forms the Police pillar of ICJS. 3. MeghRaj, on which ICJS is hosted, is operated by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). 4. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 fully governs the retention and use of criminal justice data collected through ICJS, with no exemptions for state law enforcement processing. Which of the statements given above are correct?