India’s judiciary has moved from a paper-bound procedural architecture to a progressively digital justice-delivery framework through the e-Courts Mission Mode Project. This article addresses a central research problem: whether judicial digitisation in India should be assessed merely by reference to unresolved pendency, or by its institutional effects on continuity, transparency, efficiency and access. It asks how Phases I to III of the e-Courts Project have altered court administration; whether digitisation has strengthened access to justice while confronting the digital divide; and what Bihar’s experience, through the Patna High Court, reveals about sub-national implementation in a resource-constrained state. The study adopts a doctrinal and qualitative method, relying on official e-Courts materials, National Judicial Data Grid architecture, government releases, judicial ICT records and secondary legal scholarship, without generating fresh empirical data. The article finds that Phase I created the basic computerisation backbone, Phase II expanded connectivity, videoconferencing, e-filing, virtual courts and the National Judicial Data Grid, and Phase III seeks to consolidate these gains through legacy-record digitisation, universal e-filing/e-payments, e-Sewa Kendras and carefully limited assistive technologies. It further finds that Bihar demonstrates both the promise and limits of digitisation: the Patna High Court’s early adoption of studio-based videoconferencing, e-filing and e-Sewa Kendras sustained judicial functioning during crisis and widened procedural access, but does not by itself resolve vacancy, pendency or wider socioeconomic constraints. The article recommends accelerated Phase III implementation, stronger last-mile assisted access, expanded digital-literacy support, transparent court-wise performance review through NJDG-linked data, and a cautious regulatory framework for AI tools that preserves human judicial decision-making.