PUNJAB & HARYANA HIGH COURT ISSUES NOTICES TO CENTRE AND NIC ON PUBLIC INTEREST LITIGATION
Subhash Jindal/Chandigarh
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has taken cognizance of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) highlighting the systemic and prolonged failure of the ‘E-Jagruti’ National Consumer Justice Portal and has issued notices to the Central Government, the National Informatics Centre (NIC), and the Chandigarh State Consumer Commission. The PIL, filed by newly graduated law advocate Raja Vikrant Sharma, claims that the portal’s non-functionality has led to a nationwide digital lockdown of the consumer justice system, depriving millions of consumers and advocates across India of access to justice.
Filed by Sharma in person as petitioner, the PIL is based on his direct experiences. It states that during his internship at the Chandigarh Consumer Commission in January, he witnessed the widespread challenges and grave hardships caused by the malfunctioning system. The plea further mentions that Sharma himself was forced to file consumer cases offline twice — on February 14, 2025, and July 31, 2025 — because the mandatory e-filing system was non-operational.
The petition highlights the complete collapse of India’s digital consumer justice ecosystem, alleging that since the discontinuation of the earlier Confonet and E-Daakhil portals, the new E-Jagruti portal has remained largely non-functional. It asserts that this has resulted in a digital lockdown of the consumer legal system, making it impossible for litigants and advocates to track cases, view daily orders, access cause lists, or obtain judgments.
The petition highlights the complete collapse of India’s digital consumer justice ecosystem, alleging that since the discontinuation of the earlier Confonet and E-Daakhil portals, the new E-Jagruti portal has remained largely non-functional. It asserts that this has resulted in a digital lockdown of the consumer legal system, making it impossible for litigants and advocates to track cases, view daily orders, access cause lists, or obtain judgments.
It also points out the absence of accessibility tools on the platform, creating insurmountable barriers for senior citizens, non-tech-savvy individuals, linguistic minorities, and economically weaker sections—effectively alienating them from the justice system. The petition compares this with the Supreme Court of India’s highly accessible website, also developed by the NIC, arguing that the current state of the portal violates advocates’ right to practice their profession under Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution.
The plea contends that the portal’s failure constitutes a grave violation of fundamental rights, relying heavily on recent Supreme Court precedents. Citing the judgment in Amar Jain vs. Union of India, the PIL argues that the right to digital access is an intrinsic part of the right to life under Article 21 and a constitutional imperative for an inclusive and just society. Referring to Ganeshkumar Rajeswarrao Selukar & Ors. vs. Mahendra Bhaskar Limaye, it further asserts that by obstructing consumer litigation, the portal’s failure undermines the very foundation of participatory democracy—a basic feature of the Constitution recognized by the Supreme Court as both a constitutional and a human right.
The case is backed by extensive evidence, including contradictory RTI responses. The petition notes that while the NIC, in response to an RTI dated June 11, 2025, claimed that the portal had been “fully functional and complete since January 1, 2025” and that the Confonet project had been discontinued, the Chandigarh State Commission, in its reply dated July 1, 2025, admitted that the E-Jagruti portal was still “under progress” and the Confonet project was “still operational.” This, the petition says, reflects administrative negligence and poor planning.
According to the petition, this negligence is not an isolated incident but symptomatic of a systemic failure. The most telling evidence, it says, is that even the official website of NICSI lacks a basic HTTPS/SSL security certificate. The gravity of this failure is underscored by the government’s own admission in a March 2025 press release, which acknowledged a high risk of cyber threats and reported over two million cybersecurity incidents in India in 2024 alone.
Taking cognizance of the matter on October 13, 2025, a Bench headed by Chief Justice Sheel Nagu issued notices to the respondents. The government’s counsel has been granted time to obtain instructions and file a response. The next hearing has been scheduled for January 13, 2026.
Petitioner Sharma stated that “This PIL marks the beginning of my legal career — a fight for the fundamental rights of my legal fraternity and every consumer in India. We argue that a digital system plagued with such severe flaws cannot become an obstacle to access to justice.”
He further emphasized that in today’s Digital India, e-governance platforms are the primary gateways for accessing welfare schemes and the judiciary. Therefore, these services must be accessible to every citizen and free from technical barriers that directly impede the nation’s progress.
“We are living in an era of cyber warfare, where data is no longer the new oil, but the new uranium. Ensuring the complete security of our nation’s digital infrastructure is a constitutional obligation,” Sharma asserted.
Expressing confidence in the judiciary, he added:“We trust that the Hon’ble Court will ensure accountability and establish a system that promotes inclusivity, cybersecurity, and transparency. We urge the Court to frame a mandatory and time-bound Standard Operating Procedure (SOPs) for the development, maintenance, and security of all current and future e-governance projects.”