What is the Cause List of the AP High Court?
The concept of Cause List is an important one and forms the basis of the way the Andhra Pradesh High Court works. The Cause List basically describes to litigants the list of benches which are adjudicating on which cases, when, and decides what court house their case will be heard in. So essentially, the Cause List for each day describes, for every bench in the Andhra Pradesh High Court, what order of day the judge(s) will be hearing.
The Cause List is important as it decides where a litigant should be at what time in the Andhra Pradesh High Court. As you undoubtedly know, the Andhra Pradesh High Court has a number of court houses and benches. There are a number of lawyers practicing in the same court house, so the Cause List also decides who gets to be heard first.
Other areas of the Cause List will describe how long your case may take – how much time the bench has allocated before hearing it again . A Cause List is also important because it declares whether the matters will be heard before a Single Judge or Double Judge bench, which is important as the Single Judge bench will have an opinion that differs from that of the Double Judge bench. Sometimes, according to the nature of the matter, like in a SLP, the Single Judge bench will be even more stringent than that of the Double Judge bench. The Single Judge bench also has a far wider degree of sanction, and can pass orders which could legally be challenged if it is overstepped. Party litigants must not forget this fact.
For parties who wish to go through the Andhra Pradesh High Court Cause List as a general rule or want to find out when the bench runs dry, the Cause List is available on the Andhra Pradesh High Court website. There are of course other portals which provide information about the Cause List, but I found the official website of the Andhra Pradesh High Court to be the most informative portal with all the required information.
Where to Find the Cause List of the AP High Court?
The crux of each and every legal proceeding before the Hon’ble High Court at Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad lies with its weekly roster that is termed as the Cause List. The Cause List is the daily list containing the cases that are to be heard by the relevant Court. The list comprises fresh as well as pending cases. The Cause List is prepared on the official website (http://hc.tap.gov.in) every day for all Sitting Judges/Courts inAS per the order of the Hon’ble Chief Justice of High Court of Andhra Pradesh as to the Allocation of work between all Courts.
The Cause List is accessible online through the official website of High Court of Andhra Pradesh at Hyderabad. It is also printed and displayed at the Notice Board of the High Court. It is pertinent to note that all the communication from the Court is issued by the Registry only and not by the Office of the Joint Registrar (Judicial). The Court may at any point of time release Reschedules, Postponements and Part Heard Lists via email sent to the respective email IDs registered in the database by the Advocates and or e-Courts appointment emails.
The Cause List can be accessed online through the official website of the High Court at Hyderabad. This is the most reliable option to access the Cause List without the possibility of inserting fake information. The benefit of obtaining the Cause List online is that updates will be made immediately to the Court website with regard to postponement of a matter or if it has been identified or notified as a "Part Heard" matter.
For example, if the Cause List of the respective court is uploaded on the official website of the High Court at 5:30 P.M. everyday, the update will get reflected immediately online during the course of the day with respect to postponement or "Part Heard". This ensures that any information will not be falsely transmitted and circulated via other sources.
One can go online and access the official website of the High Court of Andhra Pradesh as below:
Step 3
Click on "Daily Cause list"
Step 4
Click on "SELECT DISTRICT COURT"
a) Select "Hyderabad (Urban)" from the dropdown.
*The Cause List for Court No.5 is displayed below.
Understanding the Cause List for Cases
When cases are filed in the High Court, they are given a number, called the cause number. This correlates to the cause number on the papercourt file.
The cause number is sequenced starting from 10000 at the beginning of each year (or sometimes the number will be the date followed by three zeros).
As the cases are filed, they are structured in the following way: The first two numbers represent the number of the case in the year; the next two numbers represent the type of case; and the last number represents a sequence number of that type of case.
So BRA/10/2011, for example, indicates a lawyer’s readiness certificate and then a sequence number indicating position in the queue. A BRA/11/2011, on the other hand, indicates a lawyer’s requirements certificate that was filed after BRA/10/2011 was filed. The PRC, however, only applies to Civil matters and so can only be between 10 and 11.
For example (the first case listed on the AP High Court Cause List for today): BEC 10000 of 2013 BRA 10001 of 2013 BRA 10002 of 2013 BRA 10003 of 2013 BRA 10004 of 2013 BRA 10005 of 2013 BRA 10006 of 2013 BRA 10007 of 2013 BRA 10008 of 2013 BRA 10009 of 2013 BRA 10010 of 2013 BRA 10011 of 2013 BRA 10012 of 2013 BRA 10013 of 2013 BRA 10014 of 2013 BRA 10015 of 2013
For this cause list, the cases have been filed since 1 January 2013. All cases are ready to proceed. BRA indicates a motion or application. As highlighted above, the case number sequencer starts from 10000. The lawyers for these cases are therefore some way behind in preparing their cases for trial.
The cause list indicates who the lawyers are for the parties in the cases. Every cause list highlights the lawyers for the parties as well. In the sample cause list above, there are lawyers named as appearing for the Respondent and the Petitioner. The lawyers therefore have file certificates and, by law, are the persons required to appear for the party they represent.
The cause list also includes the Judges who have been assigned the case for hearing. In the cause list above, the Judge assigned to the BEC case is the Honourable Mr. Justice Amiya Chandra. You’ll also see where the Judge has the initials "J", which means he’s a Judge. This is how we identify Judges as opposed to Chief Justices or Justices of Appeal.
Apart from the lawyers and the Judge, the cause list also indicates what stage in the proceedings the case is at. Some causes are headlisted, which means that they are now under case management. Other causes have been ordered for trial.
The cause list also indicates when the case was ordered for trial. This is very useful information because if you’re looking to have your case heard, you can look at the cause list and effectively determine how much of a backlog they have.
The Significance of the Cause List for Advocates
The AP High Court Cause List is an essential resource for legal professionals to prepare themselves for upcoming proceedings. It allows them to study the cases they will be involved in, make necessary preparations, and better understand the time frame they will have for presenting their arguments. By familiarizing themselves with the formed cause list and the contents within it, lawyers can allocate their time more effectively and reduce the stress that comes with last-minute information.
The published cause list can be used by legal professionals to schedule their appearances at the High Court Sessions, as well as plan their representation in lower courts. The importance of declaring the time, place, and date for the cases in the cause list cannot be understated . Missing these details can lead to complications in scheduling, causing delays and other issues.
Legal professionals also utilize the cause list to determine if any changes have been made to the cases they are observing or participating in. For example, clients may instruct their lawyers not to settle a case unless there is an increase in the cause list price. The cause list can indicate whether this increase has been met. Further, the cause list provides insight into which cases will be tried first and which lawyers will be appearing during the proceedings.
Lastly, the cause list is important to legal professionals because it offers updates on important dates such as judgment delivery dates and appeal dates. Therefore, the cause list becomes an invaluable resource for staying aware of changes in schedules and managing their time more efficiently.
Difficulties and Common Problems
There are basic challenges that need to be overcome in attempting to use the AP High Court Cause list. Fairly obviously, the Cause list that is made available, and re-visited at times, does not include all of the cases. Cases may disappear from the Cause list for various reasons, including settlement. The Cause list currently (and for some time) is published on a quarterly basis, although may be published weekly if the High Court were to change its practice. A perusal of the Cause list shows that sometimes the cause number or names of the parties are blacked out for privacy purposes (or other purposes) and sometimes they are not. The use of cause numbers as a part of the legal address helps immensely with the identification of cases. Related causes may be identified easily. For example, if a person has been declared a vexatious litigant, he/she cannot institute any further proceedings against the relevant persons unless leave of the court is first obtained. Related proceedings may be easily identified by an expert who knows what to look for. For example, if a vexatious litigant were to re-institute proceedings, he/she would be required to set out in the court papers, details of the vexatious litigant order and the date is was issued, and would be required to set out the cause number of related proceedings. If a vexatious litigant made two applications to the court to rescind his/her vexatious litigant status (on different occasions), one would expect that those two causes would be listed as related. That appears not to be the case with the current Cause list. Also, where the vexatious litigant, or the related opponents, appeared in person but under a common cause number, the relevant cause numbers may be used to identify the vexatious litigant and/or litigant’s lawyers; this information is also valuable. A perusal of more than a year’s worth of Cause lists shows that cause numbers are blacked out and un-blackened at the discretion of the Registrar with no consistency. As a result, there are large amounts of blackened cause numbers in the Cause list which are not searchable on the current website. It is suggested that a better practice may be to blacken a specific individual or entity, so as to avoid privacy issues, rather than an undifferentiated large swathe of cause numbers. It should be noted in this regard that there are other website where cause numbers are searchable by litigants and/or the general public. It is also suggested that while the Cause list is best viewed when printed out on A3 paper, it may be more useful to present it in an A3 page format on the website. It is also appreciated that such a document would have to be re-printed fairly frequently and presented in a searchable format which allows for pages to be easily flipped through and printed out as a single document. It is suggested that the Cause list have an index, which could easily be done. It is also suggested that the cause numbers be searchable by any search engine on the website. Currently the registration number of the relevant individual or entity can be typed into the search box and one may be able to identify the relevant cases or cause numbers. However, it is suggested that a search of all of the cause numbers may also be conducted. Currently, the cause numbers are numbered, and are not in chronological order. The result of this is that if one wishes to identify the latest judgment or judgment from the relevant cause number, one would have to go down the cause list looking for it, or checking the index, or both. A result of such chronological mis-numbering is that it may be necessary to revert to previous cause lists to find the relevant information. This is a procedural complication which in many respects may be avoided by a small re-formatting or re-numbering of the current format. A perusal of the Cause lists does show that a number of lawyers regularly appear before the same judges, in the same or different matters, pending before the same or different judges. There is also an overlap in the names of the parties before the various judges. It would be possible, given the appropriate information, to identify which judges are regulars, and may also be possible to identify "favourite judges" given the relevant rank or position, and perhaps, the history. It may also conclude that, at least in certain types of cases, judges with a particular rank, and/or certain judges within the same division, are more experienced or suited. From a convenience perspective one would appreciate receiving an e-mail alert for any matter in which one is interested, rather than having to check the website regularly. From an efficiency perspective one would recommend the relevant cause numbers be presented in one or two A4 pages, as opposed to the current A3 format. In a similar vein, one would suggest a searchable list which is sortable by cause number, dates, name for the parties etc. It is suggested that while the information may be indexed, the use of A-Numbers, rather than cause numbers, may be easier to identify entities and individuals. Furthermore, a more detailed indexing of the relevant information may assist in allowing a fair or sound basis upon which to affect any such searches. This would entail the small expense of upgrading the current system. It is suggested that judges with presiding rights should be able to access cause lists directly, including without any limits (other than security services). This would entail some reformatting and connectivity. Perhaps additional links could be included in relation to the relevant case numbers, to allow direct access to them. It is also suggested that cause numbers be maintained on a single system, rather than in a main frame for the division. This would allow a fair but sound basis upon which to affect any such searches. This would entail the small expense of upgrading the current system. Currently, a fair amount of information is available on the cause list. It is suggested that the current information could be easily packaged into an article 21 report under the relevant provisions of the Civil Procedure Act, No 5 of 2017: Promotion of Administrative Justice Act, Act No 3 of 2000 and PFMA. It is suggested that ultimately, one of the main challenges in relation to the cause list available on the relevant website is one of finding appropriate resources to maintain it. It is suggested that the monitoring of the cause list could be improved through the use of elements of artificial intelligence and reporting mechanisms.
Recent Changes and Developments
As the needs for case management evolve over time, so too do the features offered to meet those needs. The Andhra Pradesh High Court is continuously enhancing the ease of use of the cause list by keeping it efficient and relevant for the lawyers and the litigants appearing in the court. One of the latest updates introduced is that unique cause list numbers will now be allotted for all types of cases. This feature will ensure that the process of retrieval of information for researching a particular case can happen from any cause list or display board, without duplicate numbering or risk of case losing track . Additionally, the Help Desk link on the home page has been made more user friendly and streamlined and can be accessed by clicking on the icon, which takes you directly to a dedicated page for grievance redressal pertaining to cause list and display board issues only. The display board feature itself has also been enhanced. It now directs the viewing of cases to respective case displays of all types of cases pending in the respective courts.