22 Jan 2024 9:46 AM GMT
Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud on Monday (22.1.24) announced steps to solve the issue of non-tallying of pagination of copies that often occurs during the pleadings.
The measures come in light of the inconvenience faced by the bench in tracing and matching the page numbers which the advocates refer to while submitting their arguments. Often an incongruence of page numbers between the soft copies provided to the bench and those with the arguing counsels creates hindrances in a smooth hearing. The CJI while announcing the measures remarked, “ I have always found that members of the bar and the bench aren't on the same page with regards to the paginated soft copies of PDFs” .
The CJI additionally clarified that at present the measures will be applied only in the Chief Justice's Court on a pilot basis and will then proceed accordingly.
As per the measures, the scanned copy of paper books with proper pagination will be shared with the Advocates on Record through the mode of email. The paperbooks of each matter will be required to be segregated into 3 PDFs, namely (1) The main PDF which shall contain petitions and relevant documents submitted at the time of filing; (2) Additional Documents' PDF which shall contain interim applications and subsequently filed documents and (3) Records PDF which maintains the record of proceedings and office reports which are submitted time to time.
It was further informed by the CJI that there would be standardization of bookmarking. The Case number and Diary number of the matter will be mailed to the respective advocates in the form of zip folders. The AORs in turn may share all the documents with the Senior Counsels (if arguing).
In a previous circular issued on August 22, 2024, the Supreme Court provided detailed comperehensive guidelines to streamline the process of filing written submissions and compilations before the constitution benches and other important final hearing matters.
The guidelines as mentioned in a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) also provided instructions on Pagination and PDF bookmarking. It stated :
v. Pagination: The running pages and PDF pages must be the same;
vi. The PDF must be bookmarked;”