HAPHAZARD NOTICE BOARD DIFFICULT TO FIND DATES OF HEARING- need lot of improvement. Some suggestions.

[CA DEV KUMAR KOTHARI]

Notice Board of ITAT:

Notice Board of ITAT is  very important for relevant information used by various users like members and officers of ITAT, appellants, respondents and their representatives. In administration of ITAT about  functioning of benches, dates of hearing, cause lists,  and orders this page is most important.

Example of notice board:

For example purpose notice board page downloaded on 18.10.2020 at 12:43 hours is inserted in this article to show variety of contents and manner of display of information.

Contents of notice board and presentation:

On the website https://www.itat.gov.in/page/content/Notice-Board we can see notice board of ITAT. In this notice board several type of information are provided relating to ITAT for example:

1. Constitution of benches for different period ( usually  weekly). These can be

1. Final
2. Provisional / subject to change or availability of members
3. Revised
4.  

2. Cause list of cases fixed before different  benches ( usually weekly for regular cases  and separately for Friday – stay petition, MA, part heard etc.). These can be:

1. Final cause list
2. Tentative cause list
3. Provisional cause list
4. Tentative/ provisional or final cause list for MA, SP etc.
5. Cause list for benches not functioning- adjournment list these lists are placed on website many days after original / last date of hearing when bench did not function.
6. Cause list for a particular bench only. E.g. see cause list for “C” Bench of Kolkata for period 26 -29 October,20. There is no cause list for cases fixed for hearing before other benches during this period.

3. Pronouncement lists for orders to be pronounced.
4. Additional pronouncement lists.
5. Adjournment of benches.
6. Filing of paper books related notices
7. Notices related to virtual benches and procedures etc.

Observations of author:

We notice that the notice board is not arranged properly. It is very much haphazard. There is no Alphabetical, category wise, bench wise , date wise , location wise, presentation. This means that there is no logical sequencing , grouping and presentation  of content.

Therefore, it becomes very difficult to trace desired and relevant information.

Better presentation to make user friendly:

Better presentation to make website user friendly can be made by following:

For each location separate webpage can be provided in search arranged in alphabetically drop list. For locations having several benches (Division Benches, SMC Benches, Special Benches etc. ) functioning, further classification for each bench can be provided. For example, for Kolkata A-D and SMC bench can be provided in separate pages.

Bench (location) and date wise presentation. Latest being on top of webpage.

Alphabetically presented from A-Z of location wise benches.

For each bench separate page or part of page can be provided for different nature like constitution, cause list, adjournment cause list , pronouncement list, adjournment list etc.

Timely information:

It is noticed that many times information about constitution and cause lists  are uploaded very late and parties and their representative do not get sufficient time due to delayed uploading of information. For example, we find that for Kolkata Benches only cause list of “C” Bench for period 22 to 29 October 2020 is found. There is no information about constitution of benches and cause list of other benches. Therefore, parties of cased fixed before A and B benches are in dark. Whether these benches will function or not, what will be next date of hearing etc.

Notice through notice board is not effective:

In view of above discussion and illustrative notice board, we can say that it is difficult to find out about dates of hearing and other information for a particular case or particular bench.

As an alternate we can get information about date of hearing in page ‘ case status’. However, usually the page of case status which also shows dates of hearing is not updated and many times it is noticed that dates of next hearing are not found in page related to ‘case status’.

Therefore, it is difficult to find and keep track of dates of hearing.

Therefore, notice through notice board is not effective and may amount to no notice unless notice of date of hearing is given to parties through other methods of communication like email or SMS.

Orders are generally uploaded quickly

We find that orders are uploaded quickly many times on the day of pronouncement itself  or  within few days from pronouncement. Although in some cases delayed uploading is also noticed. Same manner should be followed for uploading information about constitution and cause lists.