The notice is the easy half. The reply is the half that gets filed against your client, and almost nobody writes about it. Both are here, along with the part everyone treats as an afterthought and courts treat as the substance: proof that it was sent.
A legal notice sets out who the sender is, what the recipient did, what is demanded, and by when — signed by the advocate on the client's instructions. Its value is in proof: the notice must be capable of being shown to have been sent to the correct address, on a date the record can establish.
There is no single prescribed form for a private notice. There is a structure that Indian practice has settled on, because each part answers a question the court asks later.
| Part | What goes in it, and why |
|---|---|
| Advocate's particulars and date | The advocate's name, enrolment particulars and address, with a reference number and the date of the notice. The date is the anchor for every period the notice creates, so it is written and not left to the postmark. |
| Recipient particulars | Full name and complete address, including the registered office of a company or the branch the dealing was with. This block decides whether the notice can be proved to have reached the right person. |
| Instructions clause | The line stating that the notice is issued under instructions from and on behalf of the named client, whose particulars are given. It makes clear that the advocate speaks for a client and not on their own account. |
| Facts, in numbered paragraphs | What happened, in date order, one fact to a paragraph, so that the reply can answer paragraph by paragraph. Documents relied on are identified by date and description as they appear. |
| The breach or cause | What the recipient did or failed to do, and its legal character — non-payment under an invoice, breach of a specified clause, dishonour of a cheque, failure to hand over possession, use of a mark. |
| The demand | Exactly what is required: a sum with its computation, an act to be done, a thing to be returned, a course of conduct to be stopped. A demand that is vague cannot be complied with, and a demand that overstates the claim invites a reply that says so. |
| Time for compliance | The period given, stated in days and running from receipt. Where a statute prescribes the period, the statutory period is what is written, not a period the sender prefers. |
| Consequences | What the client will do if the demand is not met — the proceedings that will be initiated, at the recipient's risk as to costs. Stated as intention, not as a threat of anything the client is not entitled to. |
| Signature and copy | The advocate's signature, and a line recording that a copy of the notice has been retained in the office. The retained copy is the one produced in court. |
| Enclosures | Where documents accompany the notice, a list of them. Where they do not, the notice says the documents are available and identifies them. |
Some notices are not optional in form. A notice before suit against the government has a statutory period and prescribed contents; a demand notice on the dishonour of a cheque has to be made within a statutory window; a contract may prescribe its own mode and address for notices, and a notice sent otherwise may be no notice at all. Check whether a statute or a clause governs before you settle the draft.
Six months later nobody will ask what the notice said. They will ask whether it was sent, to which address, and on what date — and the answer has to be a document.
The standard mode. Keep the postal receipt with the tracking number and the acknowledgement card when it returns. Where the envelope comes back undelivered, preserve it unopened — a returned cover carrying the postal endorsement is itself part of the record.
Useful for speed and for a delivery record. Keep the consignment note and the proof of delivery. A courier record is generally treated as supporting the postal record rather than replacing it.
Contemporaneous, cheap and easy to produce. Send from an address that can be identified as the advocate's, keep the sent item with headers intact, and use it in addition to post rather than instead of it. Where a contract prescribes an email address for notices, use that one.
Residence, registered office, the branch the dealing was with, the address in the agreement, the address on the cheque. One correct address is worth three convenient ones, and sending to all of them costs very little.
The retained copy, signed and dated, filed with the dispatch particulars. It is the document produced in evidence, so it should match exactly what went into the envelope, enclosures included.
A dated entry showing what was sent, to whom, by what mode, and with what receipt number. In a chamber that runs on matters rather than on memory, this is the entry that saves an argument later.
Two habits pay for themselves. First, compute every period from receipt rather than from dispatch, because that is how the other side will compute it. Second, put the compliance date into the diary the same day the notice goes out — the limitation calculator carries 21 statutory clocks and rolls a date past weekends, holidays and court vacations, which is precisely the arithmetic people get wrong by two days.
This is the general structure of the timeline under the Negotiable Instruments Act. It is set out here as structure, not as advice on any matter — check the bare act and the current authority before you act on a file.
The clock does not start on the date of the cheque, and it does not start on the date of presentation. It starts when the payee receives information from the bank that the cheque has been returned unpaid — the return memo is the document that fixes it.
A written demand for payment of the amount of the cheque must be made to the drawer within thirty days of receiving that information. This is the demand notice, and it must demand the cheque amount.
The drawer has fifteen days from receipt of the notice to make payment. Receipt, not dispatch — which is why the postal record decides the arithmetic, and why an unclaimed cover matters.
If payment is not made within those fifteen days, the cause of action arises, and the complaint follows within one month of that date. A complaint filed before the fifteen days have expired is premature and is liable to be returned.
The day of the intimation is not counted. Periods of this kind are computed by excluding the day of the event and counting from the day after, so a thirty-day window from an intimation received on the 1st does not end on the 30th. The same applies to the fifteen days, counted from the day after receipt by the drawer. Two days is the usual size of the error, and it is fatal in a jurisdiction where the window is not extendable at will.
The second trap is address. Where the drawer does not collect the cover, the date of receipt has to be established from the postal record and the endorsement on it, which is why the service section above matters more here than anywhere else. Terms used on this page are defined in the glossary of Indian legal terms, and the clock itself can be run in the limitation calculator.
Draft the reply on the assumption that it will be annexed to the other side's pleading and read out against your client. That single assumption changes every paragraph of it.
| Part of the reply | What it does |
|---|---|
| Heading and reference | Identifies the notice being answered by its date and reference, the date it was received, and on whose behalf the reply is issued. The date of receipt is stated because it fixes the period the sender will later count. |
| Preliminary objections | The points that go to the notice as a whole rather than to any paragraph — that the demand is misconceived, that the sender has no locus, that the dispute is already before a court or an arbitrator, that material facts have been suppressed, that the claim is barred by time. Taken first, because they are answered first. |
| Para-wise reply | Each paragraph of the notice answered by its number: what is admitted, what is denied, and what is not admitted for want of knowledge. This is the part that is skipped and should not be — in practice, what is not specifically dealt with is read as unchallenged. |
| The addressee's own version | The facts as your client says they are, in numbered paragraphs, with the documents identified. A reply that only denies leaves the court with one story; a reply that states a case leaves it with two. |
| Refusal of the demand | The demand refused, with reasons that follow from the version already stated, and any counter-demand made in the same document where instructions permit it. |
| Reservation and costs | That nothing in the reply is an admission, that the addressee reserves the right to take proceedings, and that the sender is put on notice as to costs. |
| Signature, copy and dispatch | The advocate's signature and particulars, the retained office copy, and dispatch by registered post with acknowledgement due to the sender's advocate at the address given in the notice. |
Three practical points. Reply within the time the notice gives, or state why more time is needed — a reply sent after the sender has already filed reads as an afterthought. Do not admit a fact in the reply that you would not admit in a written statement, because the reply will be produced alongside it. And never draft a reply from the notice alone: get the client's documents first, because a denial contradicted by the client's own paper is worse than silence.
This page describes how these documents are structured in Indian practice. It is not legal advice, and it is not an opinion on any matter. A qualified advocate must settle and sign any notice or reply before it is sent.
Notices are the most repetitive drafting in a practice and the easiest to get wrong at speed. In Lawgger the notice formats sit in a library of 3,500+ Indian formats across 61 categories, each wired to an intake form: you answer plain questions about the parties, the dates, the document relied on and the demand, and the draft comes back with those particulars already in the right paragraphs — in English or in any of ten Indian languages.
Where a proposition in the notice needs an authority behind it, research is pin-cited to the page of the judgment and carries a good-law verdict, so nothing overruled goes into a document that will be read back to you. See legal research and good-law checking.
The dispatch side is handled with the doc tools: OCR on the scanned return memo or the acknowledgement card so it is searchable, conversion between Word and PDF, compression for attachments, and stamps placed where they belong. The signed copy, the postal receipt and the acknowledgement go into the private chamber vault with the matter, so the file that proves service exists before anyone asks for it.
The compliance date goes into the diary with the matter, and the matter itself runs through practice management — tasks, the billing timer, GST invoices and approvals. More on the drafting flow at drafting, and the whole library at formats.
A legal notice carries the advocate's particulars and a date, the recipient's name and complete address, a clause stating that it is sent under the client's instructions, the facts in numbered paragraphs, the breach or cause complained of, a precise demand, the time given for compliance, the consequences of non-compliance, the advocate's signature, and a list of enclosures. A copy is retained on the file.
A demand in writing can be made by the party themselves, but in Indian practice a legal notice is drafted and issued by an advocate on the client's instructions, because it is written to be produced in court later. Where a statute prescribes a notice — before a suit against the government, or on the dishonour of a cheque — the notice must comply with what that statute requires.
Ordinarily by registered post with acknowledgement due, sent to every address at which the recipient is known to receive communication, and often supplemented by courier and email. What matters is not the mode alone but the proof: the office copy, the postal receipt, the tracking record, the acknowledgement card, and any envelope returned undelivered, which should be preserved unopened.
For a private demand there is no general statutory reply period. The notice itself states the time given, and seven, fifteen or thirty days are the periods usually seen. Where a statute prescribes a period it governs — a drawer has fifteen days from receipt of a demand notice on the dishonour of a cheque, and a notice before suit against the government has its own statutory period.
Silence is not by itself an admission, and no consequence follows automatically from failing to reply. What it does is close off an explanation: the sender proceeds to the step the notice threatened, and the absence of a reply is commonly relied on in argument. Where the notice is statutory, non-compliance within the prescribed period is what creates the right to move forward.
A reply opens by identifying the notice and its date, sets out preliminary objections, answers the notice paragraph by paragraph stating what is admitted and what is denied, then puts the addressee's own version of the facts, refuses the demand with reasons, and closes reserving rights and costs. It is drafted on the assumption that the other side will annex it to their pleading.
The structure of the timeline is a demand notice within thirty days of the payee receiving information from the bank that the cheque has been returned unpaid, fifteen days for the drawer to pay from receipt of that notice, and a complaint within one month of the expiry of those fifteen days. The day of the intimation itself is not counted, and a complaint filed before the fifteen days expire is premature. Check the bare act and current authority for any matter.
Email is widely used and is useful because delivery is contemporaneous and the record is easy to produce. It is best used in addition to registered post with acknowledgement due rather than instead of it, because a court asked whether the notice reached the recipient will look for the postal record. Where a statute or a contract prescribes a mode of service, that mode must be followed.
A note on what this page is. This is a drafting format published for advocates, describing how a document is structured in Indian practice. It is not legal advice, it is not an opinion on anybody's matter, and reading it creates no advocate-client relationship. A qualified advocate must settle and sign any notice or reply before it is sent. Lawgger is a software company and not a law firm.
Notice and reply formats that ask the right questions, authorities that are still good law, and a diary that already knows when the period runs out. Fourteen days free, no card.