Guidelines for E-filing

Till the time of formulation/ circulation of rules regarding e-filing in

Subordinate Courts, following guidelines will operate as guiding force and
learned District and Session Judges may formulate additional guidelines, as per
requirement, till the time such rules comes into force:

1. General Instructions

1.1. On-line e-filing shall be made by visiting the web portal of the Court,
namely https://efiling-phc.ecourts.gov.in/.

1.2. Except as provided in these guidelines, Actions, whether in fresh,

pending or disposed of cases, will be filed electronically by an
advocate or litigant in person from their home, office or other remote
location in the manner provided in these guidelines.

1.3. Any person who is unable to access the e-filing portal would be
entitled to make use of the facilities provided at the Designated
Counters for that purpose.

1.4. The size of the e-file should not exceed 50MB. In case the file size
exceeds 50MB, the Advocate or litigant shall visit any one of the
Designated Centres for enabling e-filing through the intranet.

2. Steps for Registration

2.1. Persons other than Advocates and litigants in person who are already
registered on the Court web portal will take the following steps to
register themselves:

i) Advocates
a) Before online registration as e-filing user, counsel should be added
to the local CIS database of this court.
 b) To get added in CIS database, download the advocate form from the
website of this court.
c) Fill the form with requisite details.
d) Submit the filled-up form along with a self-attested copy of the Bar
Council Registration Certificate or Bar Council I-card (in PDF
format only) to the registry/ office of the court or sent through
email.
e) After addition of name in CIS database, advocate has to follow the
online registration process for e-filing available on the e-filing
portal.
f) Should visit the web portal (https://efiling-
phc.ecourts.gov.in/register) to view the form.
g) Click the registration link.
h) Fill the form with requisite details.
i) Submit the filled-up form along with a self-attested copy of the Bar
Council Registration Certificate or Bar Council I-card (in PDF
format only).
ii) Litigants in person
a) Should follow the online registration process for e-filing available on
the website of this court.**
b) Should visit the web portal (https://efiling-phc.ecourts.gov.in/register) to
view the form.
c) Click the registration link.
d) Fill the form with requisite details.
e) Submit the filled-up form along with the self-attested copy of any
identity document issued by the Government (if PDF format only).

2.2. Litigants in person shall submit an affidavit/undertaking that they have not
engaged an Advocate in the Action. A litigant in person, who subsequently
engages an Advocate, shall make an application before the Administrator for
transferring the data in respect of the Action to the Advocate’s account.
Once the Administrator allows the application, the data in the Action shall
be transferred in the user account of the Advocate. The litigant in person will
not be in a position to modify the data of the subject Action, without the
permission of the Administrator.
2.3. A login ID will be allotted on the next working day if the application is
found complete in all respects. The procedure for registration is set out in
Appendix-II.

3. Frame of Pleadings
All the pleadings of the parties should be in accordance with Rules
and Orders of The Punjab & Haryana High Court and the instructions
issued thereto from time to time.

4. Formatting

4.1. All the original suits/ complaints etc typed text material including
notice, memorandum of parties, main petition or appeal, interlocutory
application(s), reply, status report, affidavit, documents, will be
prepared as per High Court rules and orders.

4.2. The document should be converted into Optical Character

Recognition (OCR) searchable Portable Document Format PDF/A
using any PDF converter or in-built PDF conversion plug-in
provided in the software.

4.3. A document which is not a text document and has to be enclosed with
the Action, should be scanned using an image resolution of 300 DPI
(Dots per inch) in OCR searchable mode and saved as a PDF
document.

5. Signatures
5.1 An electronically filed document must include a signature block
setting forth the name, mailing address, phone number, fax number,
and email address of the filing party's advocate or party where it is
not represented by an advocate.
5.2 In addition, the name of the filing party's advocate must be preceded
by a "sd/-" and typed in the space where the signature would
otherwise appear. A handwritten signature is required for any
 conventionally filed document.
5.3 Affidavits and exhibits to pleadings with original handwritten
signatures must be scanned and uploaded in PDF or PDF/A format.
5.4 Where a document requires signatures of more than one party it may
be filed either by:

(a) Representing the consent of the other parties on the document

by inserting in the location where each handwritten signature

would otherwise appear the typed signature of each person,
other than the filing party, preceded by a "sd/-" and followed
by the words "by permission" (e.g., "sd/- AB by permission");
and by:

(b) Electronically filing a scanned document containing all

necessary signatures.

(c) The signature on any document required to be notarized,

acknowledged, verified, or made under oath must be

handwritten and scanned into the eFiling system. The court
will maintain the scanned document as the official court
record, and the filing party must file the original documents
with the pleadings by conventional filing.

6. Dos and Don't's

6.1. The text documents and scanned documents set out in clauses 6.3 and
7.1 should be merged as a single OCR searchable PDF file and should
be book-marked as per the Master Index, duly approved by the Office.

6.2. Once e-filing is accepted, the filing or registration number shall be

notified to the Advocate or litigant in person.

6.3. In case on-line e-filing includes audio and/or video files, the
Administrator shall generate a hash value.

6.4. Special Characters are not allowed while e-filling Memo of Parties
and Advocate remarks.
 6.5. Document Binary File Name Standards
The following special characters are not allowed in a file name:
• A quotation mark (")
• A number sign/Pound (#)
• Per cent (%)
• Ampersand (&)
• Asterisk (*)
• Colon (:)
• Angle brackets (less than, greater than) (<>)
• A question mark (?)
• Backslash (\)
• Forward slash (I)
• Braces (left and right) ({ })
• Pipe (I)
• A tilde (—)
• The period (.) character used consecutively in the middle of the
file name or at the beginning or end of the file name.
File names should not exceed 45 characters in length, including
spaces. Single space must be counted as one character each.

6.6. On-line e-filing shall not be watermarked or encrypted. The e-filed

documents shall not contain any virus, malware, spam-ware, trojan
horse or the like. All the e- filed documents shall be legible and free
of markings, track changes or annotations.

7. Payment of Court Fees/Other Charges

Court fee and other charges can be paid either electronically by purchase on
the on- line facility provided by the authorized agency or from the
Designated Counters provided for the purpose in the High Court and District
Courts or from any authorized court fee vendor. The Transaction ID
provided upon payment of court fee and other charges is required to be
entered in the appropriate field at the time of on-line e-filing.
8. Hard Copies of Pleadings and Documents filed Electronically

Advocates, as well as parties shall continue to file the hard copies with in 3
days of the e-filing of the petition. Provided that the case will be listed for
hearing only after filing of the hard copies.

9. Access to the Electronic Data of the Action

Free of cost access will be available to authorized person(s) to data e--filed

by any of the parties to the specific Action, as is presently being provided in
pending Actions. This facility shall be in addition to the procedure of
obtaining certified copies.

10. Storage and Retrieval of e-Filed Documents and Pleadings

E-filings will be stored on an exclusive server maintained under the control

and directions of the Court. Each such filing will be separately labelled and
encrypted for facilitate easy identification and retrieval. The security of such
filings will be ensured.

11. Since e-filing rules are yet to be framed and servers are yet to be established
at several locations, the observations of these guidelines will be subject to
availability of resources.