Bombay High Court steps in to avoid case delays

In order to streamline filing of cases and avoid delays, the Bombay High Court has issued strict directions on pagination of petitions and listing of exhibits. Justice G S Patel has ordered for imposition of penalty on litigants and petitioners who do not number the pages of their petitions and list the exhibits properly. Justice K R Shriram, while hearing testamentary petitions, directed advocates and parties appearing in person to rearrange records with running pagination and index. Patel, in his order, said, “If any matter is found without paging, costs may be imposed. While it is the responsibility of every advocate to ensure paging, it is the responsibility of the party who moves the court to ensure that the paging and numbering is corrected before the matter is taken up.”

As per Shriram’s order, “Advocates and parties will coordinate with the Registry of this court to re-arrange the record in a proper fashion with a running pagination and an index. Preferably a separate compilation, corresponding to that of the advocates, and on white paper should be prepared for use by the court.

For matters that are compiled in multiple volumes, there should be running paging for the entire record.”

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He has also asked advocates and parties to come with chronology of dates and events, bullet points of submissions, index of exhibits containing date, particulars, exhibit numbers and if documents are yet to be received in evidence, a separate list with date and particulars are to be submitted.

These orders have been notified by D V Sawant, prothonotary and senior master of the high court. A senior advocate of the high court said, “It is a much-needed order as many a times, the hearings get delayed and precious time is wasted when petitions are not paginated properly. Since thousands of cases are heard in a day, this method of streamlining will go a long way in ensuring speedy disposal of cases. Imposing fines on those who don’t abide by it is a good move.”