Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud on Monday announced measures to address issues related to tallying paginated soft copies of pleadings during hearings before the Supreme Court.The CJI indicated that a standard operating procedure will be released in this regard."I have always found that members of the bar and the bench are not on the same page with regard to the tallying of paginated soft copies of PDFs," he stated.The measures which will be in practice in the CJI's courtroom first on a pilot basis before proceedings to other courtrooms, include segregation of the digital pleadings into main, additional documents and records.The CJI today read out the following excerpts from the list of measures taken:
- Scanned paperbooks with pagination will be shared with the Advocate-on-Record via email. The paginated PDFs are to have details of interim applications. The Advocate-on-Record is to circulate the copies to senior and other counsel.- Each case paperbook to be segregated into 3 PDFs - PDF Main to contain petitions and documents submitted at the time of filing; PDF Additional Docs to contain interim applications and subsequently filed documents; PDF Record to contain record of proceedings and office reports.- All such PDFs will be digitised while preparing to ensure parity of the copies being used.
- Bookmarking would be standardised - Case and Diary numbers will be emailed to Advocates to access zip folder. The Advocates-on-Record may share all documents with the Senior Counsel.In August last year, the Supreme Court had issued guidelines for filing written submissions and compilations before Constitution Benches and in important final-hearing cases.The guidelines provide a standard operating procedure (SOP) for filing soft copies of written submissions and common compilations of documents, rules and precedents. It also calls for fixed timelines for oral arguments in such matters.As per the guidelines, the concerned bench will in advance nominate one nodal counsel each from both sides.The guidelines also specify the format in which the volumes will be filed.In the event the Court grants permission for the submission of supplementary materials, such materials should be assigned consecutive page numbers, properly indexed and bookmarked and included in the relevant volumes.All arguing counsel must inform the nodal counsel about the tentative timelines for their oral arguments at least five days before the commencement of the hearing, the guidelines state.Further, nodal counsel will then prepare and present a statement of the proposed timelines for all counsel after which the Court will prescribe timelines for oral arguments to be adhered to by all counsel.
TAGS: Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud Measures to Address Soft Copy Pleadings Supreme Court
