E-FILING RULES OF THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI 2021

Rule - 1. Short Title, Applicability and Commencement.

These Rules will be called "E-Filing Rules of the High Court of Delhi 2021". They will apply to the High Court of Delhi and the District Courts and Tribunals under the control and supervision of the High Court of Delhi.

These Rules will come into force from the date notified by the High Court and will apply to such categories of cases and courts and tribunals as would be notified by the High Court.

(1)     Preface

These Rules will apply to on-line e-filing and e-filing via Designated Counters and facilities provided for e-filing through e-Sewa Kendras. These Rules amend and consolidate the existing Rules and Practice Directions.

Rule - 2. Definitions.

2.1. Action: includes all proceedings instituted in the Court such as suits, criminal complaints, appeals, civil or criminal writ petitions, revision petitions, contempt petitions, execution petitions, arbitration petitions, probate cases and interlocutory applications.

2.2. Administrator: means the Registrar (IT) or an officer appointed by the Chief Justice for administering and dealing with matters connected with or relating to e-filing for the High Court. In so far as the District Courts are concerned it would mean the In-Charge Computer Branch or any other Officer nominated by the District and Sessions Judge (HQ).

2.3. Bench: means and includes one or more Judges assigned to adjudicate upon Actions or the Presiding Officer of the Court or Tribunal as the case may be.

2.4. Designated Counter: means and includes that counter which finds mention in APPENDIX - I & APPENDIX - IA concerning the High Court and District Courts respectively and those that may be included or excluded therefrom from time to time.

2.5. District Courts: means and includes the courts established and functioning under the control and supervision of the High Court.

2.6. E-Committee: means the Committee constituted and mandated by Hon'ble Chief Justice of India from time to time.

2.7. Electronic Filing (e-filing): means e-filing as prescribed through the Internet (at the web portal of the Court) and through the internet/intranet at Designated Counters, unless the context requires otherwise.

2.8. Evidence: means and includes evidence as defined under the Indian Evidence Act,1872.

2.9. High Court: High Court means the High Court of Delhi.

2.10. Objections: means and includes deficiencies and errors pointed out by the Registry concerning the Actions instituted in the Court.

2.11. Opposite Party: means defendant(s), respondents, judgment debtor(s) and non-applicant(s).

2.12. Party: means appellant(s), plaintiff(s), petitioner(s), complainant(s) and applicant(s).

2.13. PDF: means an electronic document filed in a portable document format.

2.14. PDF/A: means an ISO-standardized version of the Portable Document Format (PDF) specialized for the digital preservation of electronic documents.

2.15. Physical Filing: means Actions and pleadings filed as hard copies.

2.16. Pleadings: means pleadings filed in support or defence of an Action including affidavits, additional affidavits and supplementary affidavits.

2.17. Registry: means and includes the Registry of the High Court and the Filing Centre of the concerned District Court.

2.18. Statement of Defence: means and includes written statements, replies, counter-affidavits and additional or supplementary affidavits.

2.19. Sterile Environment shall include environment protected from dirt, humidity, fluids, extreme temperatures, external electric, nuclear and magnetic fields.

2.20. Technical failure: means a failure of the court's hardware, software, and/or telecommunications facility which results in the impossibility of submitting a file electronically. Technical failure does not include malfunctioning of the equipment of the person submitting an e-file.

2.21. Third Party: means and includes any person or entity seeking to become a party or to intervene in an Action.

2.22. Tribunal means and includes all Tribunals under the control and supervision of the High Court.

2.23. Working Day: means and includes a day when the Registry of the Court is working under the Calendar published or as directed by the Court.

Rule - 3. General Instructions.

3.1   Online e-filing shall be made by visiting the web portal of the Court .

3.2. Except as provided in these Rules, Actions, whether in fresh, pending or disposed of cases, will be filed electronically by an advocate or litigant in person from their home, office or other remote location in the manner provided in these Rules.

3.3. Any person who is unable to access the e-filing portal would be entitled to make use of the facilities provided at the Designated Counters for that purpose upon payment of charges if stipulated.

3.4. For the moment the maximum size of the e-file is fixed at 100 MB for the High Court and 20 MB for the District Court, subject to enhancement of the e-file size upon a notification being issued in that behalf by the Administrator. Where the High Court is concerned, in case the size of the e-file exceeds 100 MB, the Advocate or litigant should visit any one of the Designated Centres for enabling e-filing through the intranet. Likewise, where the District Courts is concerned, in case the size of e-file exceeds 20 MB, the Advocate or litigant should either split the e-file in parts not exceeding 20 MB or seek the assistance of the E-Sewa Kendra located at the concerned District Court.

Rule - 4. Steps for Registration.

4.1. Persons other than Advocates and litigants in person who are already registered on the Court web portal will take the following steps to register themselves.

(i)       Advocates

(a)      Should visit the web portal to view the form.

(b)      Click the registration link.

(c)      Fill the form with requisite details.

(d)      Submit the filled-up form along with a self-attested copy of the Bar Council Registration Certificate or Bar Council I-card (in PDF format only).

(ii)      Litigants in person

(a)      Should visit the web portal2 to view the form.

(b)      Click the registration link.

(c)      Fill the form with requisite details.

(d)      Submit the filled-up form along with the self-attested copy of any identity document issued by the Government (in PDF format only).

4.2   Litigants in person shall submit an affidavit/undertaking that they have not engaged an Advocate in the Action. A litigant in person who subsequently engages an Advocate shall make an application before the Administrator for transferring the data in respect of the Action to the Advocate's account in. Once the Administrator allows the application, the data in the Action shall be transferred in the user account of the Advocate. The litigant in person will not be in a position to modify the data of the subject Action, without the permission of the Administrator. As regards the District Court, as and when the application is made available, the relevant procedure to be followed shall be notified by the Administrator.

4.3. A login ID will be allotted on the next working day if the application is found complete in all respects. The procedure for registration is set out qua High Court and District Courts in APPENDIX - II & APPENDIX - IIA respectively.

Rule - 5. Frame of Pleadings.

The pleadings should be clear and concise. Parties and third parties should set forth their claims/averments in separate paragraphs. The statement of truth/ affidavit of the concerned person must bear their signature. Opposite parties should also file their replies under sequentially numbered paragraphs and headings (such as Preliminary Objections and Objections on Merits).

Rule - 6. Formatting.

6.1. All the original typed text material including notice of motion, memorandum of parties, main petition or appeal, interlocutory application(s), reply, status report, affidavit, documents, will be prepared electronically using the following formatting style:

(for quotations and indents - font size 12 in single line spacing)

If any document is typed in a local language in Trial Courts, it must be prepared using xxx Unicode Font 14.

6.2. The document should be converted into Optical Character Recognition (OCR) searchable Portable Document Format (PDF) or PDF/A using any PDF converter or in-built PDF conversion plug-in provided in the software. PDF/A is the preferred format.

6.3. A document which is not a text document and has to be enclosed with the Action should be scanned using an image resolution of 300 DPI (Dots per inch) in OCR searchable mode and saved as a PDF document. The procedure for converting a document into an OCR searchable PDF as mentioned above and as required in clause 8.1 is set out in APPENDIX - III.

Rule - 7. Digital Signatures.

7.1. The PDF document shall be digitally signed either by the parties and/or by their Advocate. The digital signatures shall be appended on such places on the PDF document as prescribed under the extant rules. If neither the party nor the Advocate who has been engaged possesses a digital signature, a print out of the Action shall be physically signed by the party concerned and/or their Advocate in accordance with rules and it shall thereafter be scanned and uploaded.

7.2. A List of recognized Digital Signature Providers and the procedure involved in appending single or multiple signatures is set out in APPENDIX - IV.

7.3. A litigant in person or advocate who does not possess a digital signature issued by the competent authority can authenticate e-filed documents by e-Sign based on Aadhaar authentication. In addition to the above, for the District Courts a litigant in person or advocate who does not possess a digital signature issued by the competent authority can authenticate e-filed documents by making use of One Time Password (OTP) transmitted to the mobile phone of the concerned person.

Rule - 8. Do's and Don'ts.

8.1. The text documents and scanned documents set out in clauses 6.3 and 7.1 should be merged as a single OCR searchable PDF file and should be book-marked as per the Master Index, duly approved by the Registry. The procedure in this behalf is, set out in APPENDIX - V.

8.2. The merged documents should be uploaded at the time of on-line e-filing. Screenshots of the manner of accessing the on-line e-filing portal and for the filing of the main case and documents including written statements, replies, replications, rejoinders, affidavits and evidence by way of affidavit in a pending case are set out in APPENDIX - VI & APPENDIX - VIA concerning the High Court and District Courts respectively.

8.3. Once e-filing is accepted, the filing or registration number shall be notified to the Advocate or litigant in person.

8.4. In so far as evidence in the form of an electronic record, such as audio and/or video files, which are to be filed in the High Court as set out in APPENDIX - VII shall be followed. As and when this facility is made available for District Courts, the procedure to be followed will be notified by the Administrator.

8.5. Special Characters are not allowed while e-filling Memo of Parties and Advocate remarks.

8.6. Document Binary File Name Standards

The following special characters are not allowed in a file name:

A quotation mark (")

A number sign/Pound (#)

Per cent (%)

An ampersand (&)

Asterisk (*)

Colon (:)

Angle brackets (less than, greater than) (<>)

A question mark (?) (*allowed in Delhi High Court)

Backslash ()

Forward slash (/) (*allowed in Delhi High Court)

Braces (left and right) ({ })

Pipe (|)

A tilde (~)

The period (.) character used consecutively in the middle of the file name or at the beginning or end of the file name.

File names should not exceed 45 characters in length, including spaces. Single space must be counted as one character each.

8.7. Online e-filing shall not be watermarked or encrypted. The e-filed documents shall not contain any virus, malware, spam-ware, trojan horse or the like. All the e-filed documents shall be legible and free of markings, track changes or annotations.

Rule - 9. Payment of Court Fees/Other Charges.

Court fee and other charges can be paid either electronically by purchase on the online facility provided by the authorised agency or from the Designated Counters provided for the purpose in the High Court and District Courts or from any authorized court fee vendor. The Transaction ID provided upon payment of court fee and other charges is required to be entered in the appropriate field at the time of on-line e-filing.

Rule - 10. Retention of Originals.

10.1. Originals of the documents that are scanned and digitally signed by the Advocate or the litigant in person at the time of e-filing should be preserved, for production or inspection, as may be directed by the Bench.

10.2. The signed vakalatnama, signed and notarized/attested affidavit and any other document whose authenticity is likely to be questioned should be preserved, at least, for two years till after the final disposal of the Action. Final disposal shall include disposal of the Action by the superior appellate court.

10.3. Notwithstanding anything above, the following documents will have to be preserved permanently:-

(a)      A Negotiable Instrument (other than a cheque) as defined in Section 13 of The Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 (26 of 1881).

(b)      A Power-of-Attorney as defined in section 1A of the Powers-of-Attorney Act, 1882 (7 of 1882).

(c)      A Trust as defined in Section 3 of The Indian Trusts Act, 1882 (2 of 1882).

(d)      A Will as defined in Clause (h) of Section 2 of The Indian Succession Act, 1925 (39 of 1925) including any other testamentary disposition by whatever name called.

(e)      Any contract for the sale or conveyance of immovable property or any interest in such property.

(f)       Any other document as may be directed by the Bench.

10.4. The responsibility of producing the originals and proving their genuineness shall be of the party that has electronically filed scanned copies of the document.

Rule - 11. Access to the Electronic Data of the Action.

Free of cost access will be available to the authorized person(s) in respect of data e-filed by any of the parties to an Action, as is presently being provided qua pending Actions. This facility shall be in addition to the procedure put in place for obtaining certified copies.

Rule - 12. Exemption from e-filing.

Exemption from online e-filing and e-filing via Designated Counters qua either the entire pleading or a part of the pleadings and/or documents, may be permitted by the Bench upon an application being made for that purpose or by Hon'ble the Chief Justice upon issuance of an appropriate order on the administrative side, albeit in the following circumstances:

(i)       where on-line e-filing is for reasons set out in the application not feasible; or

(ii)      where there are concerns about confidentiality and protection of privacy; or

(iii)     where the document cannot be scanned or filed electronically because of its size, shape or condition; or

(iv)    where the online e-filing portal is either inaccessible or not available for some reason; and/or

(v)      for a just and sufficient cause.

Rule - 13. Service of Electronic Documents.

In addition to the prescribed mode of service, notices, documents, pleadings that are filed electronically may also be served through the designated e-mail IDs of Registry officials to the email address of the advocates or parties, if available. E-mail IDs of Registry officials will be published on the Court website to enable the recipients to verify the source of the e-mail.

Rule - 14. Computation of Time.

14.1. Wherever limitation/time limits apply, it will be the responsibility of the party concerned to ensure that the filing is carried out well before the cut-off date and time. The date of e-filing will be taken as that date when the Action is electronically received in the Registry within the prescribed time on any working day. For computing the time at which e-filing is made, Indian Standard Time (IST) will apply.

14.2. E-filing through Designated Counters will be permissible up to 1600 hours on any court working day. Online e-filing carried out after 1600hours on any day, will be treated as the date which follows the actual filing date provided it is a court working day. Actions filed on a day declared as gazetted holiday or on a day when the court is closed, will be regarded as having been filed on the next working day. For the computation of limitation, online e-filing shall be subject to the same legal regime as applicable to the physical filing, save and except as provided hereinabove.

14.3. The facility for online e-filing through the web portal shall be available during all twenty-four hours of each day, subject to breakdown, server downtime, system maintenance or such other exigencies. Where on-line e-filing is not possible for any of the reasons set out above, parties can either approach the Designated Counters for e-filing between 10 am to 4 pm on court working days or take recourse to the physical filing. No exemption from limitation shall be permitted on the ground of failure of the web-based online e-filing facility.

14.4. Provisions for limitation governing online e-filing will be the same as those applicable to the physical filing. The period of limitation for such actions will commence from the date when e-filing is made as per the procedure prescribed in these Rules.

Rule - 15. Procedure for Filing Caveat.

All caveats can be filed on-line. In so far as the High Court is concerned, the procedure is set out in Appendix- VIII. As regards the District Court, as and when the application is made available, the relevant procedure to be followed shall be notified by the Administrator.

Rule - 16. Hard Copies of Pleadings and Documents filed Electronically.

Advocates, as well as parties, may print hard copies of all pleadings and documents filed electronically for their use in the court or elsewhere. The Registry will wherever required to prepare hard copies for official use.

Rule - 17. Storage and Retrieval of e-Filed Documents and Pleadings.

E-filings will be stored on an exclusive server maintained under the control and directions of the High Court / E-Committee. Each such filing will be separately labelled and encrypted to facilitate easy identification and retrieval. The security of such filings will be ensured. Access to e-filings would be restricted in the manner provided herein above and as may be notified from time to time. For continuity of operations in case of disaster, natural calamity or breakdown, a mirror image of e-filings available on the servers located in the Court may be maintained at different geographical locations, as decided from time to time by the High Court / E-Committee.

Provided for marking electronic records as exhibits in the course of the trial, the protocol set out in Appendix IX shall be followed qua the Actions instituted in the High Court. As regards the District Court, as and when the application is made available, the relevant procedure to be followed shall be notified by the Administrator. However, the mere assigning of a unique number to the electronic record will not amount to the authentication or proof of such electronic record. Nothing in these rules shall be construed as dispensing with the proof of the electronic record as required under the law.

Rule - 18. Residuary provisions.

18.1. The e-filing made by an Advocate/litigant in person will be rejected if they do not follow the protocol mandated by these Rules or practice directions.

18.2. Subject to such further directions as may be issued, it would not be obligatory on the part of the opposite party to accept pleadings and documents by email. In such an eventuality, hard copies of pleadings and documents will have to be provided to the opposite party. In such circumstances, the plaintiff/ petitioner can be called upon to deposit the charges calculated based on the number of pages per defendant/respondent which are required to be photocopied. This facility will be provided by the Registry on a written request being made by the defendant(s)/respondent(s).

18.3. The Registry will communicate the objections, if any, regarding the cases filed by email/SMS/web hosting to the concerned Advocate/litigant in person. After the objections are cleared the case will be processed for listing and the Advocate/litigant in person will be informed including by email/SMS.

Rule - 19. General Caution.

Email is not a secure medium of communication. Any communication transmitted by email can be intercepted or read by a third party. An Advocate or litigant in person seeking to transmit confidential or sensitive document/material shall approach the Registry for requisite assistance/advice.