The Notice Board Deadline: Which Antecedent, Which Order Number
The section must paste a notice on the Bar room board by 16:00 today. The draft handed to you reads, in full: 'The application filed by Shri R. Das on 12 May 2025 was rejected by the Registrar on 20 May 2025, which he has challenged before the Hon'ble Chief Justice, and the same will be listed on 27 May 2025 for orders.' The Board's standing instruction is that no notice may exceed 55 words, must name the operative order and its date, and must not use a pronoun for any party or authority. A senior clerk says the sentence is grammatically fine and should go up unchanged. The case is CRP/114/2025 and the Registrar's order is No. 87/2025. A fresh peon is waiting to carry the notice; the Board is cleared at 16:30.
1. Identify every defect that prevents the draft from satisfying the Board's three instructions, and supply a compliant rewrite of not more than 55 words.
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Defects.
- Which has no clear antecedent: it could refer to the application, the rejection, or 20 May. Under the Board rule the notice must name the operative order, so the referent has to be the rejection order.
- He and the same are pronouns for a party and for an order, both expressly barred.
- The rejection order is never identified by number, so the first instruction fails even if the grammar were perfect.
- Tense shifts from past (was rejected) to future (will be listed) without a linking verb of challenge in the correct tense.
Rewrite (45 words):
'In CRP/114/2025, the Registrar's order No. 87/2025 dated 20 May 2025 rejected the application of Shri R. Das dated 12 May 2025. Shri R. Das has challenged that order before the Hon'ble Chief Justice. The matter will be listed on 27 May 2025 for orders.'
Every party and authority is named, the operative order carries both number and date, and the word count is inside the limit.
2. The senior clerk argues that the passive voice is the real problem. Assess that argument.
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The argument confuses style with accuracy. Notices, cause lists and endorsements are routinely passive because the actor is institutional rather than personal: the matter will be listed is correct and no active alternative improves it. None of the Board's three instructions mentions voice.
The genuine defect is referential failure. A notice is read in a corridor in ten seconds by someone who was not in the file; if which can be read two ways, the reader cannot tell whether the applicant challenged the Registrar's rejection or the Chief Justice's listing. That is a risk of a wrong appearance or a wrong application, not a stylistic blemish.
Removing the passive while keeping which and he would leave the notice just as unserviceable. Fix the antecedents and the order number first; voice is a matter of house style only.
3. At 16:15 the Registrar's office says the order number may be 87/2025 or 78/2025 and cannot confirm before 16:30. What do you do, and why?
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Do not paste a guessed number and do not initial the file as if verified. A notice citing the wrong order number is a substantive defect: it can send the reader to a different file, and it is far harder to correct once it is on the board and has been photographed.
The sequence is: (i) hold the notice; (ii) inform the Registrar's office in writing, at 16:15, that the number is unverified and that the Board's instruction cannot be met without it; (iii) ask whether the 20 May order itself may be described by date only, which would still identify the operative order if the Board permits that form; (iv) paste only on written confirmation, and record the time of pasting and the reason for delay in the dispatch register.
A short recorded delay is an administrative lapse. A wrong order number on a court notice is an error of record.