Bombay High Court Makes E-filing Mandatory For Criminal Cases, Arbitration Petitions

The categories for which e-filing has been made mandatory are as:

1) Criminal Writ Petition

2) Criminal Application under 482 of Cr.P.C.

3) Criminal Application

4) Criminal Appeal

5) Criminal ALP

6) Criminal Revision (Leave to file Appeal–Private)

7) Second Appeal

8) Miscellaneous Civil Application

9) Arbitration Petition

10) Contempt Petition (Civil)

"E-filing of new cases in these classes would include all responses / replies, rejoinders, miscellaneous documents and all applications," the court said in the notice.

This comes two weeks after the court issued a notice making e-filing mandatory for all cases in the Commercial Division, all cases concerning Direct and Indirect Tax, and Non-Commercial Arbitration cases filed at Original Side from January 2, 2023.

On December 28, the division bench of Justice G. S. Patel and Justice S. G. Dige requested advocates and parties to use e-filing for all fresh matters while issuing a number of directions on the administrative side to reduce “paper in-flow” and make listing of cases more efficient.

The bench has also introduced an online system for requesting urgent listing of cases via a Google form. This is on an experimental basis till a more robust system for e-filing of praecipes (a brief note setting out the urgency) is introduced.