What Is NJDG and How to Use It: The National Judicial Data Grid Explained (2026)

How-to · Court Data

Updated for 2026 · Claw Editorial

Many lawyers and litigants type "njdg" into a search bar hoping to see the status of their case, and then find a page of charts and national totals. The National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) is the government dashboard of pending and disposed cases across India’s district courts, High Courts and the Supreme Court, built on eCourts data. It is mainly for statistics and monitoring, such as pendency by court, state and age, and not for pulling an individual case the way eCourts Services does. This guide explains what NJDG is, how to read it, and how to actually track your own case.

01What NJDG is

The National Judicial Data Grid is a public online system that collects case data from courts and shows it as national, state and court-wise statistics. It is part of the eCourts project and is run with the National Informatics Centre (NIC). The portal sits at njdg.ecourts.gov.in.

The idea is simple. Courts record their cases on eCourts software. NJDG pulls that data together so that anyone can see how many cases are pending, how many were filed and how many were decided, without asking each court one by one.

Which courts are covered

NJDG covers all three tiers of the judiciary: district and taluka courts, the High Courts, and the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court was added later than the other two, which completed the picture from the lowest court up to the apex court.

Who built it and why

The grid exists to bring transparency and to help courts and policymakers manage delay. When pendency is visible by court and by age, it is easier to ask why a particular court is slow and where more judges or better scheduling are needed.

NJDG tells you how the courts are doing. It does not tell you where your case is.

02What NJDG shows

NJDG shows counts, not case files. The main things you can see are listed below.

• Pendency: how many cases are still pending, at national, state, district and individual court level.
• Institution: how many new cases were filed in a period.
• Disposal: how many cases were decided or closed in a period, often shown month by month.
• Case age: pending cases split into age bands, for example cases older than 5 years or older than 10 years.
• Case type: civil against criminal, and original, appellate and execution stages.
• Reasons for delay: the grid also reports why some cases are stuck, for example stays, or parties or witnesses not appearing.

The numbers are updated by the courts themselves, and the data is open to anyone visiting the portal.

03NJDG vs eCourts Services

NJDG and eCourts Services use the same underlying eCourts data, but they answer different questions. NJDG answers "how are the courts doing". eCourts Services answers "what is happening in this one case".

So if you want the next hearing date of your matter, NJDG is the wrong door. Use eCourts Services, which is listed on the main eCourts portal. If you want to know how many cases are pending in a district court, NJDG is the right one.

04How to read the dashboard

Reading NJDG well is mostly about picking the right level and then comparing. Follow these steps.

1. Open the portal. Go to the NJDG home page and choose district and taluka courts, High Courts, or the Supreme Court.
2. Drill down. Start at the national view, then pick a state, then a district, then a court establishment.
3. Read the headline counts. Note pending, instituted and disposed cases for the period.
4. Check age and type. Split pending cases into civil and criminal, and look at the older age bands first.
5. Compare. Put one court beside another, or one year beside another, to see if pendency is growing or falling.
6. Note the date. The data is a snapshot as reported by courts, so always record when you looked.

Two common mistakes

First, treating pending numbers as a ranking of judges. The grid shows court-level counts and says nothing about how complex the cases are. Second, quoting the numbers without a date. Pendency changes every day, so a figure without a date is hard to trust.

When NJDG is useful to a lawyer

Advocates use it to judge how long a fresh case may take in a given court, to support a bail or delay argument with real pendency data, or to prepare a client note on expected timelines. It is context, not case tracking.

05How to actually track your own case

To follow one case, you need a tool that looks up that case, not one that shows totals. There are three practical routes.

• eCourts Services: free and official. Search by CNR number, case number or party name to see status, next date and orders. It works one case at a time and you have to go back and check.
• High Court and Supreme Court websites: each has its own case status page and cause list. Useful, but the formats differ and you must check each one.
• A case tracking tool: software that follows your matters across courts and tells you when something changes, so you do not check portals by hand.

If you have many matters across forums, manual checking gets slow and risky, because a missed date can cost a client. For a comparison of tools that go beyond NJDG, see best tools for tracking cases beyond NJDG.

NJDG data can also help in due diligence. Pendency figures give context, but to check a specific borrower or party for live cases you need a search for that party, as explained in pre-sanction borrower litigation screening.

One more note on terms. If you land on court orders about restrictions on a person’s movement, that is a different topic from case statistics. See what externment means in India.

06Where Claw fits

Claw is an all-in-one legaltech platform for Indian advocates, law firms, and corporate legal teams, combining AI-based case search, an AI legal assistant (Legal GPT), case management, and compliance automation across all Indian courts and tribunals.

NJDG is for the big picture. For tracking your own matters across forums, Claw is the tool: you add your cases, and Claw follows them across courts and tribunals, sends WhatsApp and email alerts, and keeps your calendar and cause list in one place. Claw has a free plan for individual advocates, with paid plans for teams and enterprises. Claw does not use customer case documents to train AI models.

Claw does not replace NJDG. Use NJDG when you want court-wide statistics. Use Claw when you want to know what happened in your case today.

07Sources and further reading

• NJDG portal: njdg.ecourts.gov.in
• eCourts: ecourts.gov.in
• eCourts Services: services.ecourts.gov.in
• NIC project page: nic.gov.in
• Claw: clawlaw.in

Last verified: October 2026. Portal layouts and figures change, so confirm on the official site.

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