Record Keeping, Filing and Court Office Procedure
This is the heart of the Examiner's job: receiving papers, checking them for defects, giving the case a number, entering it in the correct register, moving the file to the right officer at the right time, and finally preserving or weeding out the record. The questions test the order of these steps and the difference between similar-sounding registers and copies.
The institution sequence
- Presentation: the plaint or appeal is filed at the filing counter with court fee, process fee and the required copies; the date of presentation is noted.
- Scrutiny: the examiner checks maintainability requirements, court fee sufficiency, cause title, verification, limitation and jurisdiction, and raises defects for the officer to note.
- Numbering: the case is registered and numbered only after defects are cured; entries are then made in the institution register and the case file is given its number and year.
- Process: summons or notices are issued, entered in the process register, despatched, and served; the acknowledgement is placed on file.
- Hearing: daily orders are recorded on the order sheet; the matter appears in the cause list.
- Custody: after judgment, the record goes to the record room, where inspection and certified copies are governed by the State Civil Rules of Practice and the High Court's circular orders.
Worked example
A plaint is presented with five rupees less court fee than the valuation requires. Should it be numbered? Reasoning: the deficiency is a curable defect identified at scrutiny. The case is not numbered until the deficit is made good; the papers are placed before the officer concerned with the defect noted, and numbering follows the cure. Registering it first would create a defective entry that has to be corrected later.
Traps that cost marks
Confusing the receipt register with the despatch register; recording the judgment date as the filing date; allowing records to leave the record room without proper authorisation; and treating an attested copy as a certified copy-only the latter is issued under the court's authority with the prescribed certification.