The Madras High Court has decided to give up the four-decade-old practice of publishing and distributing of bulky manual cause lists to the lawyers on every working day. The High Court has decided to go fully digital by making access to the cause list only online, along with receiving alerts on the lawyers and litigants’ mobile phones.
The move has been taken in the view of the huge financial burden faced by the court which involves the enormous use of paper, apart from the responsibility of the court in supplying those lists through contractors.
Through the Government Press on 26 December, the Judicial Registrar M. Jothiraman issued a circular to office-bearers of all bar associations, that the Full Court had decided to stop printing as well as the distribution of manual cause lists, to be executed from 1 January 2020. However, the circular asserted that all the four recognized Bar associations in the High Court would be given 2 hard copies of the cause list, every working day for those who likely prefer the hard copy.
Subsequently, “The negotiations were undertaken by the Bar and the State Government can be pursued by the Bar and it will be open to the State Government to extend any such facilities to the Bar including the finances to be incurred thereon without burdening the High Court any further in this regard,” the circular read.
