Specifications

Assumptions

Theme	Assumption
Upload of Documents	Voluntary upload of documents cannot be made without Judge's approval. An application has to be generated by the litigant/advocate and approved/rejected by the judge. Other parties will be notified of the submission and will have the opportunity to respond to the documents.
If there are multiple documents requested as part of an order, the workflow for all of them will happen separately.

Applications

Application Generation

1. Applications may be raised by advocates at any point of time, even post-case closure

2. Applications are raised within a case

3. Advocates will raise applications against one request at a time

4. Applications may be raised against an order

5. Multiple applications may be raised simultaneously

Template for Application

1. There will be standard application templates available in the system for application types.

2. Each type of application will have a defined set of fields.

3. Based on the values of attributes, the application template will be populated with the required content.

4. The litigant may be able to raise an application beyond the ones for which predefined content is available. In such case, the litigant will be required to write out the content to be published as part of the application

5. The applications will be published in a pdf format and available for view and download from the pdf section.

Application Workflow

1. An application once triggered will have a workflow

2. The judge can accept/reject the application. Rejection of the application will require a judge to enter a reason

3. On acceptance of an application, an order will be generated by the system.

4. SMS Notifications: Parties should be notified via SMS at various points. A list of SMS at various points is mentioned here.

Submissions requested by the judge

1. Order for Application Submission:

• The judge can request for one or multiple documents to be submitted by one or multiple parties in the duration of a case/post a hearing

• The judge will include a submission date in the document and, if a response is necessary from the other party, a response date as well.

• When you select "Document Submission" as the order type, relevant fields will appear. The data entered here will be used to populate the document submission request template.

• The judge will sign the Order digitally.

• Once an order is digitally signed, the same is published in PDF format.

• The PDF will be available for View and Download in the Documents tab of the ‘View Case File' screen.

1. Pending tasks:

• The document submission will appear in the pending tasks for both the Litigant and the Advocate who need to submit it.

• Litigants can view tasks only, while advocates can upload documents.

• Clicking on a pending task redirects the user to the Case view page, where they can upload documents.

• In case a response is required, the other party will see "Response Pending" in their tasks. Clicking on these tasks will redirect the user to the View Case Page, where they can add a response in text or an e-signed document format.

1. Response Handling:

• Advocates (opposite party) can update their response, which will then be marked as "Response Updated."

Voluntary Applications

1. Application Generation:

• Advocates can raise applications for voluntary document submissions, attaching the necessary documents.

• Voluntary submissions may be disallowed X days before a hearing, configurable during system setup.

• Asynchronous interactions can take place for submission of applications, reissuing of dates, adjournments etc.

• The opposite party is notified about the submission, and have the ability to submit written replies or request an oral hearing to respond to any applications. The judge should make the decision on whether to grant.

• Parties may file a response to an application for voluntary submission. This may be done anytime upto X days (configurable) after an application

• Templates for commonly used orders and applications will be available in the system.

• Applications for Voluntary submissions can be approved/rejected by the judge.

• If accepted, an order for acceptance will be generated. If rejected, an order will be generated for rejection.

1. View Voluntary Submissions:

• Applications for voluntary submission along with documents will be visible in the document section of the case.

• Accepted/Rejected Voluntary submission applications will be available for viewing and download in the Documents section of the case.

• Documents uploaded as part of accepted applications will be visible separately as documents in the doc section and may be marked as evidence by the benchclerk/judge.

1. Pending tasks:

• If a response is required, the other party will be able to see Response Pending in their pending tasks. On clicking the pending tasks, the user will be redirected to the documents section of the View Case Page and will be able to add a response, both in text and document format.

1. Application for Response:

• In case the judge has not requested a response, yet the other party wants to respond, they can apply the same using the Take Action Button.

• The judge can approve or reject the same. If approved, the judge can provide a timeline for the same. Additionally, the judge can reschedule the hearing. Based on this, an order will be generated for approval

• If rejected, an order will be generated for rejection.

Delay Application

1. Advocates can request extensions for application submission deadlines before the due date.

2. If not accepted before the due date, the delay application remains open without affecting submission timelines.

3. Judges approve or reject delay applications, generating orders for either approval or rejection.

Notifications and Reminders

1. SMS Notifications: Parties will be notified via SMS at various points. List of SMS at various points is mentioned here.

2. Reminders: A tasking system in the form of a pending actions tab is available to view all pending actions. Although specific reminders are currently not relayed through SMS, users are directed to the portal where the specific tasks pending are displayed.

Ideas for Future Development

(The following are currently not available in V1.0)

1. UI for configuring Application Template

2. Making all documents related to the case, including orders available on digilocker

3. E-sign of Applications by Applicants

4. Revoking an application once raised

5. Applications raised by litigants/advocates not associated with a case

6. The automated trigger for rescheduling of hearing if the hearing date is close to voluntary document upload date

7. Physical submission to the court and an upload of its copy into the system by the court staff. For litigants and Advocates facing challenges in uploading documents, assistance of the Nyay Mitra may be seeked.

8. Responses can be filed on overall documents and not on specific sections/parts of the document

9. In case of delay of async submission, the judge will be notified. It is for the judge to decide whether the hearing date needs to be rescheduled. In case a need for reschedule is required, the judge can manually use this from the ‘Take Action’ section.

10. There will be no discretion in the system whether a document requires a response or not. For voluntary submissions, all documents will be allowed responses and it is upto the discretion of the judge to take into consideration the response.

UI Screens

1. Sample Advocate Applications flow on Mobile

Sample Advocate Applications flow

Functional Specifications

Available in the Orders and Applications sheet here.

These specs are used to populate the order templates available here.