In a bid to facilitate the procedure of marking appearances of advocates, the Supreme Court has developed an online module which will be activated from January 2. Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, had on December 16, announced that from New Year, lawyers would not be required to file appearance slips manually, but would log into 'Advocate Appearance Portal' to mark their presence. Presently, advocates write their names along with details like the case and its serial number on a prescribed paper form, to mark their presence in a hearing to ensure that their names get reflected in the court orders or judgements.

A notice, uploaded on the apex court's website, regarding activation of portal of filing online appearance slips said that the Advocates-on-Record (AoR) may mark the appearances of lawyers appearing in the court through the link provided on the top court website and on its official mobile application.

"The said facility shall be available for the duration spanning from the publication of the cause list on the website till 11.30 am on the date of hearing of the matter. The user manual for the same is available on the website," said the December 30 notice.

"Take notice that an online module has been developed to facilitate procedure of marking appearances of the advocates in the record of proceedings, which is going to be activated from January 2, 2023," it said.

The notice also said that the existing practice of submitting appearance slips on court-wise email IDs shall stand dispensed with from January 2.

It said in case of any query, the AoR may contact the concerned court masters, whose contact details are available on the website on daily basis.

The apex court had earlier issued a statement stating that "manual filing of advocate appearance slips will be a history. On the first working day of the Year 2023; AOR may submit an appearance slip through the new portal".

The portal has been designed and developed for bringing speed, accuracy and efficacy for recording the appearance of the advocates in the record of proceedings, the statement had said.

"The Advocates on Record (AoR) may certify the appearance of advocates in a matter and send the appearance slip through this portal," it had said. The appearance slip is received through advocates directly in the court or through email on the day the case is listed and verification of the AOR is done manually in the existing process, it said.

The appearance slip will be received online through the Advocate Appearance Portal and at the time of login, verification of the AoR is to be done by software through One Time Password (OTP), it had said.

"This online facility is also an environment-friendly step through which approximately 2,00,000 papers per annum will be saved," it had added.

Recently, the apex court operationalised a separate portal to deal with queries sought under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

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