(1)
Preface These Rules will be called e-filing Rules.
These Rules will be applicable to the District Courts and Tribunals over which
High Court of Jharkhand has supervisory jurisdiction. These Rules will come
into force from the date of its notification. These Rules will 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 District Courts and Tribunals such as
suits, criminal complaints, appeals, revision petitions, contempt petitions,
execution petitions, arbitration petitions, probate cases, such other cases
filed in District Courts and Tribunal, Miscellaneous case(s), Caveats and
Interlocutory Applications. (2)
Administrator:
means the Registrar/Judge-in-charge or an officer appointed by the Principal
District Judge for administering and dealing with matters connected with or relating
to e-filing and in case of Tribunal, any officer appointed by the Presiding
Officer of the Tribunal. (3)
Bench:
means the presiding officer of the Court or Tribunal as the case may be. (4)
Physical
Filing: means Actions and pleadings filed as hard copies. (5)
District
Courts: means the Courts established and functioning under the control and
supervision of the High Court of Jharkhand. (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 Sherestidar in relation to the
Actions instituted in the District Courts or such officer of the Tribunal. (10)
Opposite
Party: means defendant(s), performa defendant(s), respondents, judgment
debtor(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 including affidavits,
additional affidavits and supplementary affidavits. (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)
Statement
of Defence: means written statements, rejoinder, replies, counter-affidavits
and additional or supplementary affidavits. (16)
Technical
failure: means a failure of the Courts' 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. (17)
Third
Party: means any person or entity seeking to become a party or to intervene in
an Action. (18)
Working
Day: means a day when the Court is working under the Calendar published or as
directed by the High Court of Jharkhand and in case of Tribunals, when the
Tribunal is working under the Calendar followed by such Tribunal. (1)
On-line
e-filing shall be made by visiting the web portal of the respective District
Courts. (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)
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 e-filing. (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 of the respective district Court or Tribunals 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 of the respective District Courts or Tribunals 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)
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. (3)
A
login ID will be allotted on the next working day if the application is found
complete in all respects. 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
: Times New Roman ·
Font
size : 14 ·
Line
spacing : 1.5 ·
If
any document is typed in a local language in Trial Courts, it must be in
prepared using xxx 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 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. (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 it shall thereafter be scanned and uploaded. (2)
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. (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. (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, counter claims,
applications, replies, replications, rejoinders, affidavits and evidence in a
pending case. (3)
Once
e-filing is accepted, the filing or registration number shall 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 while e-filling Memo of Parties and Advocate
remarks. (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 (%) Ampersand (&) Asterisk (*) Colon (:) Angle brackets (less than, greater than)
(<>) A question mark (?) Backslash () Forward slash (/) 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. (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 electronically by purchase on the on-line facility provided by the
authorised agency or from the Designated Counters provided for the purpose in
the 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. (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 will 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 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. (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. (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. Access free of cost access 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, notices, documents, pleadings that are filed electronically may also
be served through the designated e-mail IDs of Registrar/Judge-in-charge or
such official designated for this purpose to the e-mail address of the
advocates or parties, if available. E-mail IDs of Registrar/Judge-in-charge or
such official designated for this purpose will be published on the Court
website to enable the recipients to verify 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 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 15.30 hours on any court
working day. On-line e-filing carried out after 15.30 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 1100 to 1530 hours on court working
days or take recourse to physical filing. No exemption from limitation shall be
permitted on the ground of a failure of the web based on-line 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. All caveats can be filed on-line when the
facility is enabled in the efiling module. 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 office of the Court will wherever required prepare hard
copies for official use. 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 may 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 mandated by these Rules or practice directions. (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 on the basis of the number of
pages per defendant/respondent which are required to be photocopied. This
facility will be provided by the Registrar or Judge-in-charge on a written
request being made by the defendant(s)/respondent(s). (3)
The
Shrestidar in case of District Courts and Officer designated for the said
purpose in case of Tribunals 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. 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 Registrar/Judge-in-charge
for requisite assistance/advice.JHARKHAND
E-FILING RULES