Serving of court notices and summons all set to go digital in Tamil Nadu

Madras High Court procures smart phones, SIM cards to be used by bailiffs

Serving of court notices and summons is all set to go digital across Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, as the Madras High Court has decided to extend the facility to all subordinate courts. It has procured smartphones to be distributed to bailiffs and process servers, who will henceforth use a mobile app to capture photographs of people on whom notices are served upon.

The bailiffs will be using the National Service and Tracking of Electronic Processes (NSTEP), an Android-based application developed at the insistence of the Supreme Court for delivery of processes.

The app will be connected to Case Information System (CIS), a software used by courts across the country for digitalisation of judicial services.

The CIS provides facility to generate electronic processes in PDF format. Once the electronic processes are generated, the process administrator of the respective court will assign the delivery to the bailiffs. The latter, in turn, can log into the mobile app using a password and view the list of processes allocated to him for service.

After reaching the destination where the processes are to be served, the bailiffs will have to handover a hard copy to the party concerned, click a photograph of the person on whom the process has been served and also obtain his/her a signature on the app before capturing the mobile device location to make sure that it was delivered at the right address.

In a circular issued to all subordinate courts, the High Court’s Registrar General C. Kumarappan has issued elaborate instructions to be followed by the bailiffs/process servers. He has asked them to keep in mind that the smartphones as well as SIM cards are the properties of the High Court and so they must be handled with utmost care and attention.

The smartphones must be used only for official purpose and no third party applications or games should be installed on them. Bailiffs will be personally responsible for the devices’ security and hence they must choose a strong password. The court will not take any liability for loss, damage or misuse.

Disciplinary action

“Uploading of any illegal or obscene material using the official mobile will attract disciplinary proceedings and if it is believed that the mobile phone is being used for anything besides the official purpose, the Principal District Judge or District Judge concerned can ensure that the process server returns the mobile device at once,” the circular read.

It also added that in case of theft or loss of the smart phone, the Principal District Judge or District Judge concerned should recover the prevailing cost from the process server concerned and intimate it to the High Court.