In yet another step towards digitisation and making the Supreme Court a “paperless” court, Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud on Friday announced that from New Year, advocates will not be required to file appearance slip 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 court orders or judgements.

“We are streamlining the process of appearance memos. Exactly, what is uploaded by the lawyers, we will get it. The court masters will not have to type it,” the CJI said at the start of the judicial proceedings on Friday.

Later in the day, the apex court issued a statement stating that “manual filing of advocate appearance slip will be a history. On the first working day of the Year 2023; AOR may submit an Appearance Slip through the new portal”.

The appearance portal is “another step to make the Registry working paperless under the directions of Hon'ble Chief Justice of India, Dr Justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud,” it said.

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 said.

“The Advocates on Record (AoR) may certify the appearance of Advocates in a matter and send the appearance slip through this portal,” it said, adding the existing process for appearance slip is “cumbersome”.

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, the statement 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 said.

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

The CJI has exhorted the AoR to utilise the portal which will be functional with effect from January 1, 2023, the statement said.

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