OA Paper Book: Index, Synopsis, List of Dates and Annexures in Order

What the rules actually say about the OA paper book

The phrase paper book comes straight from the Central Administrative Tribunal (Procedure) Rules, 1987. Rule 4 says the application under Section 19 is filed in Form I, in triplicate, in two compilations. The first compilation holds the application with the order you are challenging. The second holds all the other documents you refer to, in paper book form. When there is more than one respondent, you also give an extra copy for each of them along with an envelope carrying that respondent's full address.

Rule 9 adds three things the paper book must carry: an attested true copy of the impugned order, copies of the documents you rely on, and an index of those documents. Each document is marked serially as Annexure A1, A2, A3 and so on. A legal practitioner or a gazetted officer can attest them. If an advocate files for you, the vakalatnama goes in too.

That is the legal skeleton. Everything else, such as a synopsis, a list of dates, separate volumes for long cases, or tabs and colour dividers, comes from practice. Some benches insist on certain parts; others simply prefer them. The safe approach is to follow the rules strictly and add what helps a judge who has thirty matters on the board that morning.

Rule 3 is also worth knowing. Pleadings and documents may be filed in Hindi, and the bench may ask for an English translation of anything filed in another language. If your charge memo or medical papers are in Marathi, Tamil or Bengali, keep a typed translation ready instead of waiting for the bench to ask.

Front to back: the order of pages in a typical paper book

How to write the index of OA so a page can be found in seconds

The index is the first thing a judge, the registry and the government counsel turn to. A good one has four columns: serial number, description of the document, annexure mark, and page numbers. The description should say what the paper is and its date, for example Office order No. 214 of 3 March 2025 withholding one increment, instead of a bare Order.

Prepare the index last. People type it first, then add a document or two, and the page numbers drift. Paginate the full set, check it, and only then fill in the page column. If you file a short and a long version (as some benches allow for bulky record), each volume needs its own index with the page numbers carried through.

Do not group unrelated papers under one entry such as Correspondence with department, pages 40 to 95. Break it into separate letters with dates. When the government counsel later says a document was never placed on record, you want to point to page 61, not to a bundle.

Synopsis in OA: what it is for and how long it should be

A synopsis is a short note, placed before the application, that tells the bench in plain words who the applicant is, what the department did, why that was wrong and what is asked for. It is not a requirement of Form I, but at many benches it is expected and at all of them it helps. A bench deciding whether to issue notice reads the synopsis and the impugned order first.

Keep it to one page if you can and never beyond two. Write it in the third person, use the same names and dates as the application, and avoid adjectives. A sentence such as The applicant, a Senior Auditor, was denied the third MACP on the ground of a single Average grading that was never communicated to him tells the bench more than half a page about injustice.

End the synopsis with the core legal point in one or two lines, for example that recovery from a Group C pensioner after five years is barred under State of Punjab v. Rafiq Masih (2015). Leave the full grounds to the application itself.

The list of dates holds the paper book together

Every service case is a sequence: joining, promotion, the incident, the charge memo, the reply, the order, the appeal, the silence. The list of dates puts that sequence on one or two pages so the bench can see at a glance whether the case is in time and whether you went through the departmental remedy that Section 20 expects.

Each entry should have three things: the date, one line on what happened, and the annexure mark or page where the proof sits. If an entry has no paper behind it, either find the paper or think hard about whether it belongs in the list. A date that the department can deny without contradiction weakens the rest.

We have a separate guide showing a list of dates for a service case worked through in words, and another on the method our office follows when preparing one. Read those before you draft yours. Here the point is placement: the list sits right after the synopsis and before the application, and its page references must be checked after final pagination.

Annexures order: the impugned order first, then the story in sequence

The order you are challenging is Annexure A-1. If you are challenging two orders, say a penalty order and the appellate order that confirmed it, the usual practice is to mark the appellate order or the latest order as A-1 and the earlier one as A-2, or to mark both as A-1 (colly) where they form one decision. Ask your lawyer which way your bench prefers. What matters is that the bench sees the final order of the department first.

After A-1, the annexures follow the order in which you mention them in the facts of the application. Since facts are usually told in date order, the annexures end up in date order too. Do not number them first and write the facts later; that is how A-9 ends up being cited in paragraph 4.4 before A-5.

Each annexure page should carry its mark at the top right, for example Annexure A-6, and the words True copy with the attesting signature at the bottom. Where a document is long and only two pages matter, file the cover page and the relevant pages and say so in the index (extract). The department can always file the rest.

Documents you receive later, such as an RTI reply that arrives after filing, do not get squeezed into the paper book. They go in by a separate application or additional affidavit, and you number them as further annexures.

Two habits that save a filing from going back

• Advocate B.K. Singh asks for the department's own copies first. Before the client's annotated photocopies, he wants the clean copies as served by the office, with the dispatch number and date visible. A copy with handwritten notes in the margin cannot go in as an annexure, and an order without its date of service makes the limitation paragraph harder to prove.
• He reads the paper book once from the index alone. Advocate B.K. Singh opens only the index and tries to reach five random documents by their page numbers. If any of them is wrong, the whole set is repaginated before filing. It takes ten minutes and avoids a defect memo that can cost a week.

Putting the paper book together, step by step

This is the order of work that tends to produce the fewest objections. It assumes the facts and grounds are already drafted.

1. Sort every paper by date

   Lay out all documents in date order on a table or in a folder. Remove duplicates and anything you will not refer to. A paper you do not mention in the application has no place in the annexures.

2. Fix Annexure A-1

   Pick the order you are challenging and place it first. Check that it is complete, legible and shows the number and date. If you have only a phone photo, get a proper copy from the office or through RTI before filing.

3. Match annexures to the facts

   Go through the facts paragraph by paragraph and mark each document A-2, A-3 and onwards as it is first mentioned. Write the annexure mark in the paragraph itself, in brackets.

4. Attest and mark

   Write True copy on each annexure and have it attested by your advocate or a gazetted officer. Stamp or write the annexure mark on the first page of every document.

5. Paginate the full set

   Number every page in one run, from the index to the last annexure. Use the bottom right corner and keep the numbers clear of the binding.

6. Fill the index and list of dates

   Now enter the page numbers in the index and in the list of dates. Cross-check five random entries against the paper book.

7. Prepare the sets

   Make the number of sets the rules and the registry require, plus one copy for each respondent and a full set for your own file. For e-filing, scan the final set into one searchable PDF with bookmarks.

If the filing comes back with objections, the guide on common registry defects and how to cure them explains the usual fixes.

Papers to gather before you start

Which bench gets the paper book, and why its practice matters

Rule 6 of the Procedure Rules decides the counter your paper book lands on. The normal choice is the bench covering your present posting, or the bench covering the place where the order was made or took effect. Once you are out of service, by retirement, dismissal or termination, Rule 6 also lets you file at the bench covering the place where you now ordinarily live. So a retired postal inspector now settled in Dehradun files at the Principal Bench, New Delhi, since Uttarakhand moved there in 2023, even though he served his last years in Lucknow.

Benches are not identical in their paper book habits. Some want the synopsis and list of dates as separate items in the index; some want a memo of parties as a separate page; some ask for a certain paper size or a particular number of sets beyond the three in Rule 4. As reported in October 2026, CAT has issued a circular aimed at uniform filing practices across benches, including e-filing and bookmarked searchable PDFs. Until you see how your bench applies it, call or visit the filing counter and ask.

If your case belongs to a bench far from where you live, our OA filing service under Section 19 covers preparing the paper book in Delhi or Ghaziabad and filing through associate counsel at other benches.

How long the paper book stage takes and what it costs

E-filing: the same order of pages, inside one PDF

CAT has an e-filing portal, and many benches now expect or encourage it. The order of pages does not change because the paper book is digital. What changes is that the PDF must be searchable (run OCR on scanned pages), each major part must have a bookmark, and the page numbers printed on the pages must match the index.

A common mistake is to let the PDF reader's page count and the printed page numbers differ, for example because the cover page is unnumbered. Then the government counsel's page 40 is your page 39. Either number the cover as page 1 or start the printed numbering so that it matches the PDF from the first sheet.

Keep file sizes reasonable. Scan at a resolution that keeps text sharp but does not create a 200 MB file. Split very long records into volumes, each with its own bookmarks, if the portal has a size limit. Keep the original signed pages safely, because some benches still ask for hard copies of the application or the vakalatnama. The wider filing process, from limitation to the first listing, is set out on our page on starting a case with an OA.

Objections the registry raises most often on a paper book

• Pages not numbered or numbered twice. The registry will return the file. Repaginate the whole set rather than inserting 23-A and 23-B.
• Annexures not attested. Each copy must carry True copy and the attesting signature. Unattested sets are a quick defect to avoid.
• Illegible copies. Faded carbon copies and dark scans are refused or flagged. Get a clean copy or a typed copy alongside the original.
• Impugned order missing or incomplete. If the order refers to an enclosure that decides the case, file the enclosure too.
• No delay application where one is needed. If the OA is outside the one-year period in Section 21, a separate application for condonation of delay with an affidavit must go in the paper book. Our page on late filing under Section 21 explains what it should say.
• Verification or vakalatnama defects. Wrong date, missing signature, or the advocate's details incomplete. Our guide on vakalatnama, verification and affidavits covers these.

Does the paper book look different for officers, staff, retirees and candidates?

The paper book format stays the same; the documents change. A Group A officer challenging a disciplinary penalty will often have UPSC advice, the inquiry report and a disagreement note, and these need to sit in the order they came. A Group C employee in a railway workshop may have SF-5 or SF-11 forms under the railway discipline rules instead of a CCS (CCA) memo. Those still go in by date, with a short description in the index so the bench knows what an SF-11 is.

Retirees usually rely on the PPO, the pension calculation sheet, the last pay certificate and correspondence with the pay and accounts office. Put the PPO near the front, right after the impugned order, because it is the document the bench will keep returning to. Families of deceased employees should add the death certificate and the papers showing their own relationship and eligibility.

Job candidates rely on the advertisement, the admit card, the result notice, the rejection letter and their certificates. The advertisement often decides the case, so file the full notice and not only the eligibility paragraph. Remember that some recruitment disputes, such as SSC GD constable or CAPF recruitment, go to the High Court and not the tribunal; check the forum before assembling a CAT paper book.

After filing: replies, rejoinders and keeping your copy in step

Once notice is issued, the department files its reply with its own documents marked R-1, R-2 and onwards. Your rejoinder will answer it, and any new papers you file with the rejoinder should be marked in a way that does not clash with your earlier annexures. Many lawyers continue your series, A-15, A-16, so the record reads as one.

Keep a working copy of the full paper book with tabs at each annexure, and insert the reply and rejoinder behind it in the same order the registry has them. At the final hearing the bench will refer to pages, and you want to turn to them without searching. Our guide on what happens after notice is issued at admission explains the stages that follow.

If you are planning to argue the case yourself, the page on appearing in person before CAT sets out where a short briefing from a lawyer can still help, for example in checking the paper book before it goes in.

What to do this week

Pull out the order you mean to challenge and write the date it reached you on a slip pinned to its front. The tribunal's one-year window runs from there, or from the day an appeal or representation sat undecided for six months. With that date fixed, spread your papers out by year and make a short list of the gaps.

Gaps are best closed now. A written request to your section or an RTI application filed this week will usually bring the missing letter before your lawyer needs it. Alongside, jot down in a page or so, in your own language, how things unfolded. Your synopsis and list of dates will be built from that page, and it cuts the time spent in conference.

For a second look at the paper book before it is bound, or for news on how filing circulars are being applied at your bench, speak to Advocate B.K. Singh about your OA papers.