(1)
These Rules shall be called High Court of Jharkhand e-filing
Rules, 2020. These will be applicable to the High Court of Jharkhand and will
come into force from the date of publication in the Jharkhand Gazette. (2)
These Rules shall apply to on-line e-filing and e-filing through
Designated Counters and facilities provided for e-filing, including e-Service
Centres. (1)
Action: means all proceedings instituted in the Court such as
Suits, Election Petitions, Civil and Criminal Applications, Appeals, Civil or
Criminal Writ Petitions, Applications (B.A. & A.B.A.), Revision Petitions,
Contempt Petitions, Execution Petitions, Arbitration Petitions & Appeals,
Probate Cases, such other Cases as enumerated under Rule 84 of the High Court
of Jharkhand Rules, 2001 as amended, Miscellaneous and Interlocutory
Applications. (2)
Administrator: means the Central Project Coordinator or an officer
appointed by the Chief Justice for administering and dealing with matters
connected with or relating to e-filing. (3)
Bench: means one or more Judges assigned to adjudicate upon
Actions or the presiding officer of the Court. (4)
Physical Filing: means Actions and pleadings filed as documents in
hard copies. (5)
District Courts: means the courts established and functioning
under the control and supervision of the High Court. (6)
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. (7)
Evidence: means evidence as defined under the Indian Evidence Act,
1872. (8)
High Court: High Court means the High Court of Jharkhand. (9)
Objections: means deficiencies and errors pointed out by the Stamp
Reporting or concerned section in relation to the Actions instituted in the
Court. (10)
Opposite Party: means Defendant(s), Respondent(s), Performa
Respondent(s), Judgment Debtor(s), contemner(s) and non-applicant(s). (11)
Party: means Appellant(s), Plaintiff(s), Petitioner(s),
Complainant(s), and Applicant(s). (12)
Pleadings: means pleadings filed in support or defence of an
Action such as Affidavits, Additional Affidavits, Counter Affidavits,
Supplementary Affidavits and any other document/report(s) permitted by the
Court to be treated as part of the pleadings. (13)
PDF: means an electronic document filed in a portable document
format. (14)
PDF/A: means an ISO-standardized version of the Portable Document
Format (PDF) specialized for the digital preservation of electronic documents. (15)
Registry: means the Registry of the High Court of Jharkhand. (16)
Statement of Defence: means Written Statements, Replies,
Rejoinder, Show Cause, Counter-Affidavits and Additional or Supplementary
Affidavits. (17)
Technical failure: means a failure of hardware, software, and/or
telecommunications facility resulting in the impossibility of submitting a file
electronically. Technical failure does not include malfunctioning of the
equipment of the person submitting an e-file. (18)
Third Party: means any person or entity seeking to become a party
or to intervene in an Action. Third Party has to register in the Court web
portal as provided under Rule 4 of these Rules either through Advocate or in
person. (19)
Working Day: means a day when the Registry of the Court is working
under the Calendar published or as directed by the Court. (20)
Regulation: means regulations made by the High Court of Jharkhand
for the purpose of giving effect to these rules. (1)
On-line e-filing shall be made by visiting or logging in the web
portal of the Court, namely: https://jharkhandhighcourt.nic.in (2)
Except as provided hereinafter, 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)
Dedicated counter facility exist in the High Court. Any person
would be entitled to make use of the facilities provided at the Designated
Counters for accessing the e-filing portal upon payment of such charges as
stipulated. (4)
The size of the e-file should not exceed 20 MB. In case the file
size exceeds 20 MB, the Advocate or litigant should split and uploaded
separately. (5)
A document that an advocate or party files electronically under
these Rules has the same legal effect as a document in paper form. Provided
that for the time being, the parties and advocates shall continue to file the
hard copy within 07 days of e-filing in urgent matter and 15 days in ordinary matter
as opted by the efilier in the efiling module at the time of efiling. The
condition of filing of hard copy of e-filed cases within 07 days or 15 days, as
the case may be, of e-filing can be relaxed by the Chief Justice by issuing
Practice directions. (1)
Advocates and litigants in person will take the following steps to
register themselves. (i)
Advocates (a)
Should visit or login the web portal
(https://jharkhandhighcourt.nic.in) 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 portal (https://jharkhandhighcourt.nic.in) 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). (2)
Litigant-in-person shall submit an affidavit/undertaking that he
has 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. 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 cannot be in a position to modify the data of the subject
Action, without the permission of the Court. (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 in Appendix-II. 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). (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: ·
Paper size : A-4 ·
Top Margin : 1.5" ·
Bottom Margin : 1.5" ·
Left Margin : 1.75" ·
Right Margin : 1.0" ·
Alignment : Justified ·
Font : Verndana ·
Font size : 14 ·
Line spacing : 1.5 ·
If any document is typed in a Hindi in Trial Courts, it must be in
prepared using Kruti Dev Unicode Font 14 (2)
The document should be converted into Optical Character
Recognition (OCR) searchable Portable Document Format (PDF) or PDF/A using any
PDF converter or inbuilt PDF conversion plug-in provided in the software. PDF/A
is the preferred format. (3)
A document which is not a text document has to be attached with
the Action, after being scanned using an image resolution of 300 DPI (Dots per
inch) in OCR searchable mode and saved as a PDF document. (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 possess 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 thereafter scanned and
uploaded. (2)
A litigant-in-person or advocate without a digital signature
issued by the competent authority can authenticate e-filed documents by e-Sign
based Aadhaar authentication. (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 book-marked as
per the Master Index. (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,
Applications, replies, replications, rejoinders, affidavits and evidence in a
pending case are set out in Appendix - I. (3)
Once e-filing is accepted, the filing or registration number will
be notified to the Advocate or litigant-in-person. (4)
In case on-line e-filing includes audio and/or video files, the
Administrator shall generate a hash value. (5)
Special Characters are not allowed in e-filing of Memo of Parties
and Advocate remarks. (6)
Document Binary File Name Standards The following special characters
are not allowed in a file name: (1)
A quotation mark (") (2)
A number sign/Pound (#) (3)
Per cent (%) (4)
Ampersand (&) (5)
Asterisk (*) (6)
Colon (:) (7)
Angle brackets (less than, greater than) (<>) (8)
A question mark (?) (9)
Backslash () (10)
Forward slash (/) (11)
Braces (left and right) ({ }) (12)
Pipe (|) (13)
A tilde (~) (14)
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. (7)
On-line 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. Court fee and other charges can
be paid either directly on the E-filing portal or electronically through
on-line facility provided by the authorised agency or through the Designate d
Counters provided for the purpose in the High Court and District Courts or
through 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. (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. (2)
The signed vakalatnama, signed and notarized/attested affidavit
and any other document authenticity of which 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. (3)
Notwithstanding anything above, the following documents shall 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. (4)
The responsibility of producing the originals and proving their
genuineness shall be of the party electronically filing the scanned copies of
the document. Access free of cost will be
available to authorized person(s) to data e-filed by any of the parties to the
specific Action, as is presently being provided in pending Actions. This
facility shall be in addition to the procedure of obtaining certified copies. Exemption from on-line e-filing
of 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 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 on-line e-filing portal is either inaccessible or not
available for some reason; and/or (v)
for a just and sufficient cause. In addition to the prescribed
mode of service, such notices, documents, pleadings that are filed
electronically may also be served upon order of the Court through the
designated e-mail IDs of Administrator or such official designated for this
purpose to the e-mail address of the advocates or parties, if available. E-mail
IDs of designated officials will be published on the Court website for
verification of the source of the e-mail. (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. (2)
E-filing through Designated Counters will be permissible up to
1530 hours on any court working day. On-line e-filing carried out after 1530
hours 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,
on-line e-filing shall be subject to the same legal regime as applicable to
physical filing, save and except as provided herein above. (3)
The facility for on-line 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 1030 to 1530 on
court working days or take recourse to physical filing. No exemption from
limitation shall be permitted on the ground of failure of the on-line or web
based e-filing facility. (4)
Provisions for limitation governing on-line e-filing will be the
same as those applicable to 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. Advocates, as well as parties,
may print hard copies of all pleadings and documents filed electronically for
their use in the court or elsewhere. Hard copies will be prepared by the Court,
wherever required. E-filings will be stored on an
exclusive server maintained under the control and directions of the Court. 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 ma y be maintained at different
geographical locations, as decided from time to time by the Court. (1)
The e-filing made by an Advocate/litigant in person will be
rejected if they do not follow the protocol or practice mandated by these
Rules. (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 be served on the opposite party. In such circumstances, the
plaintiff/ petitioner can be called upon to deposit the photocopy charges of
the pleadings and documents per respondent/defendant. This facility will be
provided by the Court on a written request made by the
respondent(s)/defendant(s). (3)
The objections or defects, if any, regarding the Action filed will
be communicated by email/SMS/web hosting to the concerned
Advocate/litigant-in-person. After the defects are cleared the Action will be
processed for listing and the Advocate/litigant in person will be informed
including by email/SMS. 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 Court for
requisite assistance/advice. The High Court of Jharkhand may
frame, as and when required, necessary regulation(s) not inconsistent with
these rules, regarding all or any of the matters for which provision is
necessary or expedient, for the purpose of giving effect to these rules. Whenever any difficulty or doubt
arises in applying and /or interpreting these Rules, the decision of the High
Court of Jharkhand thereon shall be final.HIGH
COURT OF JHARKHAND E-FILING RULES, 2020