The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has taken a definitive step towards a paperless judicial environment, mandating that all new cases filed before it must be accompanied by a complete digital copy of the case file, with immediate effect. The directive was issued through an official circular by Additional Registrar (Judicial) Aijaz Ahmed following the full transition of the Chief Justice’s Court into an e-court under the leadership of Chief Justice Sarfraz Dogar. Proceedings in the Chief Justice’s Court have gone completely paperless, with hearings now commencing using screens installed in the courtroom, supported by case management systems, online hearings, and digital records.
The shift towards digitisation was witnessed by the additional attorney general, the deputy attorney general, and Islamabad Prosecutor General Manzoor Jajja, who were present during the e-court proceedings. Speaking on the occasion, Prosecutor General Manzoor Jajja remarked that the adoption of modern technology would help make case proceedings more transparent and expeditious, adding that lawyers and litigants were being provided with online access to judicial information. Lawyers described the adoption of technology as a significant step towards aligning the delivery of justice with modern standards, echoing sentiment that has followed similar digitization pushes across Pakistan’s judiciary over the past year, including NITB’s E-Office rollout at the Supreme Court.
According to the circular, issued with the approval of the Chief Justice, the concerned party or counsel must submit a complete, legible, and properly arranged digital copy of the case file in the prescribed electronic format, alongside the original documents and prescribed paper books at the time of filing. Responsibility for ensuring the completeness, legality, accuracy, and proper sequencing of the digital case file rests solely with the party or counsel submitting the case. The circular explicitly states that no hard copies of case files will be supplied to the offices of the advocate general, prosecutor general, the deputy attorney general, or other similarly situated law offices, which will instead be provided with digital copies through officially prescribed electronic means.
All digital case files and subsequent electronic documents must be transmitted solely through the court’s official electronic system, with the transmission of confidential or case related material through unauthorised or personal electronic media strictly prohibited. Where required under applicable procedure, biometric verification of lawyers and litigants may be conducted through NADRA’s e-Sahulat service for authentication and identity verification at the time of filing, extending the same NADRA infrastructure that has increasingly underpinned other government and judicial digitization efforts across the country. The registrar of the IHC or other authorised officers have been tasked with issuing further administrative instructions, guidelines, and Standard Operating Procedures covering technical aspects including electronic format, scanning quality, file size, file naming, authentication, uploading and transmission procedures, and the preservation of digital records, with the detailed guidelines to be issued separately and made available on the court’s official website.
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