LI Network
Published on: January 23, 2024 at 12:58 IST
Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud announced on Monday steps to address the prevalent issue of non-matching pagination in e-filed copies during pleadings.
Acknowledging the inconvenience faced by the bench when page numbers referred to by advocates do not align between soft copies provided to the bench and those with arguing counsels, CJI Chandrachud emphasized the need for a resolution.
Expressing that members of the bar and bench are not always on the same page regarding paginated soft copies of PDFs, CJI Chandrachud announced measures to mitigate this concern. These measures will be initially applied in the Chief Justice’s Court on a pilot basis.
Under the outlined measures, scanned copies of paper books with proper pagination will be shared with Advocates on Record via email.
Paperbooks are to be divided into three PDFs: the main PDF containing petitions and relevant documents submitted during filing, an Additional Documents PDF for interim applications and subsequently filed documents, and a Records PDF maintaining the record of proceedings and office reports.
CJI Chandrachud also mentioned standardization of bookmarking, with the case number and diary number being sent to advocates in the form of zip folders. Advocates on Record can then share these documents with Senior Counsels if they are presenting arguments.
This initiative follows a circular issued on August 22, 2024, by the Supreme Court, which provided comprehensive guidelines for filing written submissions and compilations, emphasizing pagination and PDF bookmarking to streamline the process, particularly for constitution benches and crucial final hearing matters.