How this works

Ten minutes, once. This app is the firm's case register and its fee calculator in one: it stores facts — cases, hearings, replies filed — and computes fees from NHAI's rulebook, to the exact rupee. Nobody does arithmetic at any point.

The five words

Word	What it means
Award	One compensation order by a land officer (SLAO) for one village. Farmers unhappy with it file cases against it.
Case	One farmer's challenge. Hundreds exist; each climbs a ladder — Arbitrator → District Court → High Court.
Bunch	All the cases from one Award at one stage, heard together on the same day. Nobody creates a bunch — it forms itself from the cases.
Format group	A sub-group inside a bunch: cases whose petitions were written from the same template. It governs drafting fees, and only drafting fees.
PIU	NHAI's local project office — the client entity that receives and pays each fee note.

How the money works

Drafting a reply is paid per case. The first three replies in a format group earn the full rate, the next seven earn half, the rest ten per cent. The ladder restarts for each format group — a fresh template is fresh work.

Appearing at a hearing is paid per day. One flat fee covers the whole bunch for that court date: the full rate if the day was productive (“effective”), a reduced one if it was adjourned. A bunch under five cases bills per case instead.

Three rules follow, and they shape everything:

Nothing stores a price. Reply #3 pays full and reply #4 pays half for identical work — price depends on position, not labour. So the app stores only facts and recomputes from the Fee Schedule, which an administrator can edit.
A hearing is recorded once, then links itself to every case listed that day. One event, one entry, seventeen files updated.
Fee notes freeze history. Once cases 1–3 are billed at full rate, the next is #4 at half rate forever. A new note picks up only unbilled work, at the correct rank.

Money has three states, used identically everywhere: Unbilled (work recorded, no note yet) → Outstanding (note submitted, unpaid) → Paid.

The daily flow

A new petition arrives → open the case under its Award. The bunch updates itself.
After a court date → record the hearing once: date, bunches listed, effective or not (with the reason), outcome, next date, any common order.
A reply is filed → record it on the case: date, pages, format group.
A case moves up a stage → promote it. Counters and bunches reset at the new forum automatically.
After every hearing, someone also keys the update into NHAI's Data Lake portal. The app cannot post there, so it prints a filing sheet with every field in the portal's own order.

The monthly flow — billing

Scope the run: PIU, kind of work (drafting or hearing), stage.
Review the builder. It lists every line the engine would bill. Untick anything to hold back — a held line is safe: it bills at the same rate on a later note.
Create the draft → review → export as .docx (what the firm emails) or PDF → mark Submitted → mark Paid.
Discarding a draft returns its lines to the unbilled pool. Nothing is lost and nothing is double-billed.

Finding things

The box at the top of every page searches case numbers, petitioners, khasra numbers, village and award names, forums, hearing dates written dd.mm.yyyy and fee-note numbers. Press / anywhere to jump to it. An exact case number opens the case itself. A case number is found in any spelling — 992/21 and 992/2021 are one search.

Getting an account

Accounts are issued by the chambers administrator. Every account belongs to one office (Delhi or Bengaluru) and sees only that office's matters; external counsel are pinned to their own cases. Sign in →