Bulky E-Filings clog up Court Registry inbox; Gujarat HC calls for strict adherence to E-Filing Guidelines [Read Order]

A 200 page reply e-filed by a caveator without the Court’s permission, recently led to the Gujarat High Court cautioning litigants against flouting E-filing guidelines issued by the Court while filing court documents through digital means..Referring to the March 22 circular dealing with the manner in which E-filing ought to be done, Justice Bela M Trivedi was constrained to direct,.“Since, the Court has noticed that the instructions/ directions as contained in the aforestated circular are not being adhered to by the parties/ Advocates, it is directed that the said circular shall be scrupulously followed by all concerned, failing which stringent view shall be taken in the matter.”Gujarat High Court.The Court was prompted to pass the order in view of intimation by the Registrar (Judicial) that after E-filing came to be permitted, “every day his Office is receiving the documents in huge quantity through email and sometimes the same documents are repeated sent by the advocates for three to four times, which causes not only inconvenience to the staff but also causes difficulty in downloading the documents in a such huge quantity.”.The Judge added, “The Court has also experienced that the pleadings and the documents are being filed in softcopy by the learned Advocates without pagination being done and without verifying as to whether the documents are legible or not.”.These observations were made while dealing with an admiralty suit, which had been settled outside the Court by the main parties..However, the Court later came to know of that a third party caveator had e-mailed to the Court Registry an affidavit in reply to the plaint, along with the annexures and judgments running into more than 200 pages without the Court’s permission. .The order recounts, “The Court therefore had taken strong exception to such filing of the documents through e-mail without the permission of the Court by the third party, and burdening the Court's records unnecessarily apart from wasting the papers in huge quantity..In view of the same, the Court was initially inclined to impose costs in the matter. However, following submissions that the reply was filed with bona fide intentions, the Bench decided to refrain from doing the same..[Read the Order]