Civil and Criminal Court Deposits

354. In the case of Criminal Court Deposits each Deposit is separately paid into and drawn from the Treasury, upon documents passed by the presiding officer and setting forth the particulars necessary for the entries in the receipt register. In this ease the registers of receipts and repayment are kept and the monthly and annual returns and lapsed lists submitted by the Treasury Officer in the manner above prescribed for Revenue Deposits, although the sets of registers and returns must all be kept separate from those of the Revenue Deposits. For these no further instructions are necessary.

355. In regard to Civil Deposits the Civil Courts merely bank with the Treasury, remitting without detail their gross deposit receipts for credit in a Personal Ledger and making repayments by cheques on the Treasury which are taken to debit of the same personal account. These Personal Ledgers, and the corresponding accounts and returns, must be kept by Treasury Officers, in the form prescribed for Personal Deposits, but quite separate from those of Personal deposits proper; and they will be designated as Civil Court Deposits.

NOTE—The Treasury Officer in sending as his vouchers the paid orders of the civil court, should attached them to a covering list showing the number and amount of each.

356. The object and effect of this arrangement is simply to relieve the Treasury Officers of responsibility for the details of the Deposit transactions, not to abolish detailed record, but to confine it to the departmental office in which register of receipts and payments must be kept up in the same form; and be worked on the same principle, as above prescribed for the Treasury Officer’s accounts of Revenue Deposits. The civil court in this case is responsible for the monthly detailed returns despatched to the Accountant General (although the vouchers are sent by the Treasury Officer) and for statement of lapses—vide paragraphs 350 to 352.

357. The civil court will incorporate with its own accounts and returns the deposit items of its subordinate courts as a Treasury Officer does those of subordinate Treasuries. It may, however, be arranged that some subordinate courts should keep independent accounts and submit their returns direct to the Accountant General. Separate accounts will, of course, be kept for, and separate returns submitted by, the several small cause courts.

NOTES—(1) Each transaction of receipt or payment of Civil Court Deposit must be initialed by—

(a) the Judge; or

(b) in the case of the High Court of Judicature or the Chief Court, or any gazetted Government servant ;

(c) in the case of a Small Cause Court, unless otherwise ordered by the Government by a Registrar appointed under section 13 of the Presidency Small Cause Courts Act, 1882 (XV of 1882), or under section 12 of the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act, 1887 (IX of 1887).

(2). The plus and minus memorandum of the balance of Deposits should be recorded by the Judge upon the register of receipts transmitted to the Accountant General.

358. In Civil courts where numerous petty sums are received from suitors for immediate disbursement in full (as for diet, postage, etc.) the detailed control might, with the approbation of the chief judicial authorities, be left with the receving court.

NOTES—(1) The receiving court, however, should record and deal with their petty Deposits with the same care and formality as others, it should enter all in detail in a register of Deposit receipts of the ordinary form, labelled "Sheriff’s petty accounts," and repayment would be recorded in the similar separate register of repayments, both to be the handled and attested like the general register. From these two separate registers daily totals would be carried into the general registers (though, of course, without numbers) and also into a register of the Personal Ledger form in which a daily balance would be struck; monthly totals of receipts and payments of Sheriff’s petty accounts would be noted on the extracts from the general registers submitted to the Accountant General, and lapses periodically reported.

(2) Detailed instructions regarding these petty Deposits should be prescribed, whenever the system is permitted by the chief judicial authority in communication with the Accountant General.