By Aashima Kakkar
Introduction
According to Article 192, every High Court shall be a Court of record and shall have all powers of such Court including the power to punish for contempt of itself. The High Court being a Court of Record simply means all the judgments made by this Court shall be preserved for future references by its subordinate Courts. Its decisions are admitted as evidence.
Records are the organized official material of any application, petition, hearing or any other proceeding. Every word that is said in Court including objection, and even statements that is withdrawn or stricken down due to a testimony are recorded by a Court reporter.
Every Court has a record room that is a storing room where all the papers of all the cases are kept.
Court Records
Court Record means the contents of the Court file. It means all information available from Court in any form. It includes progress docket, transcripts filed with clerk, electronic Records, video tapes, stenographic tapes.
It is maintained by the Clerk who maintains all Civil and Criminal Proceedings of the High Court and Appeals from the District Court. It does not include Records of Violations of Vehicle Laws, Written Opinions of Court, Cash Receipt Necessary for Audit Purposes.
Such Records can be accessed easily by public. A Court clerk or a Recorder is responsible for recording such proceedings.
Custody of Records
The custody of Court Records shall be kept by the Registrar General and no document or any other record is taken away without the permission of the Registrar.
General rules to be followed
- Applications and Petitions shall be written on water marked plain paper (also known as water marked petition paper).
- Official foolscap half sheet shall be used for English portion of the Records and judicial forms.
- Standard petition paper shall be used for forms which are Vernacular.
- Writing orders on top and along the side of the page is forbidden.
- A sufficient margin is to be left on both sides in vernacular proceedings so that if the edges get destroyed the written matter is still legible.
- All Records are kept between stiff covers until they are transferred to record room. This is done to prevent fraying and folding. Once transferred to record room, they must be tied with tape or strings so that papers of different cases do get mix.
- English papers should be unfolded and tagged together with country paper.
- Exhibits should be folded and placed in envelopes.
- Uniform foolscap size paper of good quality should be used for writing abstract of case, deposition of witness and judgment. In no situation, no other type of paper can be used.
- Every page should be numbered in a consecutive order.
- Handwriting of Records should be such that it can be easily read by others and not illegible.
Index
Each record should have an index in the prescribed format. The date of the document should be mentioned in index along with presiding officer. Enough details should be mentioned in the index so that the document can be easily identified.
For example- if it is a deposition, mention the deponent name. The document should be divided into parts and each part should be name like ‘A’, ‘B’ and so on.
When any paper is transferred from one part to another, it should be mentioned in remarks.
When a document is withdrawn from the record, it should be mentioned in columns or remarks whether a copy has been substituted or not.
Record Rooms
The Records, except those which have separate record rooms, are consigned to record rooms. The Records of Small Cause Courts and Records of cases under the Guardians and Wards Act and Provincial insolvency Act are consigned to record of Deputy Commissioner.
Records of Civil appeal and revisions are consigned to record room of District Judge, but in headquarters where there are no district judges, they are consigned to room of Deputy Commissioner.
Copies of Challans kept in record rooms shall be kept only for three years and shall be destroyed afterwards. The record keeper will compare the index and the contents of the document to ensure that all the documents are present in the record. If he finds it complete, he will sign the certificate present at the bottom of the index and make an entry in the Register. If he finds that any document is missing, he will bring it in notice of the Court.
Every Dispatcher and Receiver of the document, that is, every person who gives and receives the document shall certify that the contents of the document are complete according to the index and if there is any deficiency, it is his duty to bring it to notice. This process is to be followed by everyone from whose hands the documents pass through unless such person has been specially exempted by some Regulation or Act.
If any deficiency is found in the record, the person who last handled the record shall be held responsible.
For destruction of executable decrees which are older than 6 years or more or have become impossible to execute shall be destroyed by orders of Civil Courts. Civil Courts shall give such orders in January, April, July and October every year.
Transfer of Records
When the Records are transferred from one place to another, a list has to be prepared of the documents to be transferred in addition to the above-mentioned index. Such list acts as evidence that the record is complete.
The documents have to be transferred in the English docket which should specify the date of acquisition and number of case except when documents are transferred by Tehsil.
When the Receiver receives the necessary record, it is his duty to check that the documents are complete as per the list and the index. He is supposed to sign the list if the contents are complete and send the list of documents received to the Dispatching Officer.
But in case the documents are incomplete he must report it to the Head Office. When the work of documents is done, they are to be returned to the record room from where they were received along with a similar list which it to be again checked by the officer who will sign the list.
Thus, attestation is to be done by every officer who receives the document regarding the contents of the document to ensure that no document is misplaced or misused. When the documents are transferred from Original Court to Appellate Court and documents are in English and Urdu, both the transcripts should be sent separately.
Inspection
Any person can inspect the documents of Court on payment of decided fees under Article 227 of the Constitution, but this inspection is subject to control of Head Office. A written application has to be made for the inspection of any record with stamps. The cases that are pending can be inspected only by the parties of the case.
When any person wants to inspect the documents of the case of the morning of the hearing, he can see the documents with prior permission of the Court and payment of urgent fee. Documents of decided cases are to be inspected at the time and place and in presence of the officer as decided by the Head Office but in case of pending cases, all these decisions are taken by the presiding judge.
When Government is a party to a case, the documents can only be inspected after the Advocate General’s permission. Inspection fees shall not be charged when documents are to be inspected by Advocate General or public prosecutor or counsel appearing for accused.
Destruction of Documents
The rules relating to this are mentioned in Destruction of Records Act, 1917. Documents whose retention period has expired must be destroyed in the procedure established by law, only if the Magistrate concerned does not want the documents to be preserved.
The papers are destroyed in the presence and supervision of the Record Keeper. The Court fee stamps on these papers are cancelled and then they are torn and sent to the Jail that makes paper and asked if they require wastepaper for the paper making process, otherwise they are sold in open market. Documents of secret nature are burnt.
Conclusion
Thus, the High Court, being a Court of record, has its own data of cases ranging from Civil to Criminal and that data is stored in a particular manner which is known as Records.
These Records are very essential information and are to be dealt with very carefully by making Index and lists while transferring. The importance of these Records can be inferred from the complicated process involved in transferring of such documents.
Though these documents can be accessed by General Public, there are a few limitations like Court-fee, permission of higher authority, etc. These documents are destroyed by different procedures and the expiry date of such documents varies according to the type of document.
Thus, it can be concluded that these documents have a huge value on importance and has to be dealt with due care and caution.