Gaggar & Associates associate Abhimanyu Chopra had moved an application in the Saket court seeking permission for his client to serve summons by email on a defendant residing in Spain. Chopra had cited a September 2010 circular of the Supreme Court (SC), after an apex court order of July 2010, and a February 2011 notification of the Delhi HC in support.
The SC had stated in its circular that “in commercial litigation and in those cases where the advocate(s) seek urgent interim reliefs, service of notice(s) may be effected by E-mail, in addition to normal mode of service”. The Delhi HC notification set out the acceptable manner of serving processes by email.
Additional district judge VK Maheshwari allowed Chopra’s application on 31 July.
Chopra, who is also an advisor to the member judges of Delhi high court’s computer committee that assists in setting up e-courts in Delhi, said that while it had become common for high courts to allow emailed service – the Delhi high court having set up an e-committee in 2007 - he added that he believed Saket was the first district court to do so, with only Delhi’s district courts currently being sufficiently technologically advanced to deal with it.
Chopra noted that district courts in Delhi were currently in the process of training court officers on operating e-courts, with one room in each district court dedicated to such training.
The Delhi high court has already provided for electronic filing of matters and has made e-filing mandatory for tax, company and arbitration benches, according to the HC’s website. By a December 2011 notification it facilitated obtaining certified copies of judgments online, instead of waiting a week for the hard copy.
The Bombay high court is reportedly preparing to inaugurate its first e-court on Thursday 15 August 2013.
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but while service via a mode that only records "sent" and not "received" is problematic.
secondly, this mode is pretty common. not really the first time. so before you publish something claiming to be revolutionary, please check
the success of failure of this model is of course dependent on the opposing party acknowledging the mail.
if that does not happen, this model has limited use.
remember, the circular states "in addition" and not "alternate"
i think its for the first time in any district court , i have been practicing for an year in the lower courts and have never heard of an email service though i believe its mentioned its pursuant to the hc notification.
so if you have not heard of it, that would not make it first, will it ?
I am not a noob. I have been practicing for quite sometime now. So I know what I am talking about.
The outlook feature is not legally binding for two reasons: one, it is not compatible if the receiver does not use MS outlook. (trust me, not everyone uses outlook) and two, it fails, when the receiver, in-spite of receiving the same tells Microsoft outlook not to send the read receipt.
So call me all the names in the world you want to call me, but reply legally. search your heart's content out, where email was seen as a valid service. any country/ any jurisdiction. and share such a judgment/ order
The reason it is not so, is because, email as a system is evidence of you sending the mail, and while the court can see a "deemed receiving" of the email and proceed; it would never proceed with the "evidence" that the mail has been received.
please also see the High court's notification again. it says email in "addition" to normal mode of service.
The reason is pretty simple, if the opposing party wants to respond they may do it faster. but there cannot be any penalty for not responding to email.
Abhimanyu is not the first person to file it in trial court, and maheshwari is not the first judge to allow such an application.
district courts in India are not courts of record, so for any person to say that this is the first ever application is bull, primarily because one, it can't be verified and two, such orders were dime a dozen in Justice Ravindra bhat's court. (delhi High court)
Do a simple search on any sowtware package and you would get it.
saw it on linkedin
If you are not 100 percent sure of something, please don't write it. The title itself is wrong. "In possible first"? Seriously? Ask lawyers who have been involved in cases of MNCs. This practice is nothing new!
I believe the point of the 'possibly' in this story was that as far as we could tell, it was the first reported case at the district court level, and therefore interesting.
Nevertheless, we clearly couched the headline in 'possibly' because we weren't fully convinced that this was definitely the first time it had happened.
In terms of batchmates, etc, that doesn't really come into it and all stories ultimately run by me, and I don't share batches with anyone.
In any case, it would be great if some others could share examples of when else emailed service was accepted by the court.
@mohitsingh8 on Twitter suggested: "Most probably Rohini Court had sent a notice to Facebook Inc (USA) by email in April-May last year." and "I guess in the defamation matter filed by Mufti Qasmi against 22 parties."
If anyone knows any more details, would love to hear how it went, whether it was successful, etc.
Best wishes
Kian
You dont share batches with anyone! How come? Never attended (law) school? :)
Nothing wrong with reporting batchmate's story, can't believe that lawyers are creating a fuss about such issues. Market is slow for some people it seems!
Didn't mean to Stir up a storm but I think every story should be properly researched....and I dont think posting a batchmates story is the issue, but posting a story just cos your batchmate States something without verifying the story worries me...I just think a lot of students visit these sites to stay updated on the latest happenings and any careless(if not self serving) articles are not acceptable... and mr kianganz i don't mean to be rude, but just like this is a "possible first"according to the story, I only think this story is "possibly"reeking with bias...
The DHC Rules were made on the basis of my email (or so I'd like to think) that I sent to the CJ in September 2010, after the SC judgement of July 2010. I'be been serving by email sporadically since 2011 (even in India), and regularly as of March this year (2013), till - ironically ! - the High Court, as a Respondent in a few writs, has started to put its foot down, and as of Saturday last, has now made a distinction between advance service (i.e. service before listing) and service after notice. Pathetically, nit-pickingly childish, especially given that their lawyer has protested to the Registrar at the service AFTER receipt of the email.
So, I have 2 applications as we speak that have been served by email, and the Registry is not putting them up, citing the Registrar's order of last week. So, I've threatened them (in writing) with criminal contempt (interfering in the due course of judicial proceedings, and in the administration of justice. Reasoning ? Because with the main application, there's also another application, seeking the Court to take approving judicial note of the fact that advance service has been effected by email. So, the Registry, by not listing the application despite this 2nd application also being filed, is using its mere 'administrative' powers to take the Court's 'judicial' decisions. That's pure criminal contempt. Let's see who blinks in this game of chicken first.)
If anyone wants a copy of my email to the CJ last week on this subject, just write me ( - sending it to Kian separately) !
So, the file is with the CJ as we speak, for a decision. Hope to get it in the next 3-4 days, and if he supports the Registrar, off we to court with yet another writ - no, not to rename the DHC to Khosla ka Ghosla, but to seek quashing of the email service Rules, because they have inadvertently omitted to provide for advance service as well. I've saved more than 3-4 lakhs in printing and service costs in the last 4-5 months alone, serving over two dozen 5-10 volume writ petitions with 10-55 Respondents each by email. Not one single hard copy served till date.
Incidentally, when it comes to lawful conduct, you will (sadly) find the DHC, on its administrative side, not much better on the lawlessness scale as any other Government Office. My experience ; perhaps some others may be more fortunate. And yet, its the best ! At least you can talk to them ! AND - they listen ! AND - are willing to change.
This is of course the correct legal position.
The foreign parties in these situations usually either ignore the service or do something imprudent that confers Indian jurisdiction.
Lawyers use this trick all the time. The registrars and even judges are often unaware of the formalities for foreign service and sometimes get worked up about sovereignty and "foreigners ignoring Indian law," and then they record service as completed. This is invariably corrected at a higher level after considerable expense and time. The point of such garbage service techniques is obviously strategic. A foreigner who gets a little slip of third-rate tissue from a metropolitan magistrate with some vague timings and locations typically panics or ignores the note.
In any event, in an application for service by e-mail, it is incumbent on the applicant to demonstrate that the e-mail address actually belongs to the party sought to be served, before the court should allow such application.
In fact, I would argue that e-mail is a better mode of service, not just for it's efficiency and cost effectiveness, but also for the fact that an e-mail records the exact content of the communication. This is unlike tradition post where counsels could send an envelope with blank papers just to show service (a somewhat common practice which is thankfully declining).
Such modes are not accepted for summons to be served abroad. Usually there is a treaty for Judicial Cooperation between nations and, as I had mentioned above, the local procedural requirements have to be complied with.
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