Allahabad High Court Reprimands UP Government For Not Accepting E-Notices

A Division Bench of Justices Manoj Kumar Gupta and Gautam Chowdhary observed,

"At the moment, on account of pandemic, the Court proceedings are being held by virtual mode. To avoid physical contact between individuals, various relaxations have been made by this Court in relation to the filing of the writ petitions by virtual mode so that no one is forced to travel long distance or physically come to the High Court only for the purpose of filing a petition. In such a scenario, insistence on part of the State respondents to serve a hard copy of the petition in their office is not acceptable, particularly when service of notice by e-mail is now a legally recognised mode of service."

The Court was hearing a criminal writ petition when the AGA stated that he has not received notice of the same.

The Petitioners claimed that the petition was filed by e-mode and before filing, notice of the same was given to the State on its email address "freshcriminalwrit@gmail.com".

At this juncture, the AGA submitted that the State is not accepting notices by email or by virtual mode and counsel for the Petitioners is required to serve a hard copy of the petition in the office of Government Advocate.

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The High Court said that amid a pandemic, physical service of petitions cannot be accepted and reaffirmed that e-service is a legally recognised form of service.

In view of the above observations, the AGA informed the Court that that necessary instructions have been issued to the office staff to facilitate acceptance of the notices by e-mode from May 27 onwards on the following emails, as per the applicable case type:

• efreshcriminalwrit@gmail.com
• efreshbailapplication@gmail.com
• efreshmisc@gmail.com

The Court has accepted this communication subject to the following modifications:

• In all cases in which notices are served by e-mail by 2 P.M., the return e-mail providing notice number shall be sent on the same day by 5 P.M. in the evening.
• In cases in which notices are received by e-mail after 2 P.M., the return e-mail providing notice number shall be sent by 1 P.M., the following working day.

All Advocates have been requested to file the E-court cases before the High Court Registry only after obtaining the notice number from the State office.

Case Title: Mohd. Ahmad & Ors. v. State of UP & Ors.

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