Commercial Disputes

Practice

Commercial Litigation & Supreme Court

Commercial Courts Act suits, injunctions, recovery, specific performance, writ jurisdiction, and Supreme Court Advocate-on-Record practice.

Commercial litigation in India was reorganised by the Commercial Courts Act, 2015. Disputes above the specified value now move through commercial courts, commercial divisions of High Courts, and commercial appellate divisions on tracked timelines. The pre-institution mediation requirement, the strict pleading discipline under Order VI Rule 17, and the stricter case-management framework have produced a faster, more procedural litigation environment than the country had before. The firm conducts commercial litigation across this framework and through to the Supreme Court of India under the Advocate-on-Record system, which carries the right to file and to act in the apex court.

What the firm does in this practice

  1. Commercial Courts Act 2015 suits

    Plaints, written statements, summary judgment applications under Order XIIIA, case-management hearings, evidence stage, and final arguments before designated commercial courts and commercial divisions of High Courts. Includes pre-institution mediation under Section 12A.

  2. Recovery suits and Order XXXVII summary procedure

    Summary suits on negotiable instruments, written contracts for liquidated demands, and cheque-dishonour matters where leave to defend is contested. Both plaintiff and defendant practice.

  3. Specific performance and injunctions

    Suits under the Specific Relief Act, 1963 (as amended in 2018) for sale-of-property and contractual specific performance, and applications under Order XXXIX Rules 1 and 2 for temporary injunctions, status-quo orders, and asset preservation.

  4. Writ jurisdiction — Articles 32 and 226

    Writs before the High Courts under Article 226 against State action, regulatory orders, and statutory authorities, and writs before the Supreme Court under Article 32 for fundamental-rights violations. Including PIL where the matter is appropriate.

  5. Limitation analysis and condonation

    Limitation defences and pleas, condonation of delay applications under Section 5 of the Limitation Act, and the strict construction of limitation in commercial contexts. Limitation is the most-defaulted defence in Indian commercial litigation.

  6. Anti-suit injunctions and parallel-proceedings management

    Anti-suit injunctions to enforce exclusive jurisdiction clauses, anti-anti-suit injunctions where appropriate, and management of parallel proceedings across forums where the same dispute is pursued in multiple jurisdictions.

  7. Enforcement of foreign judgments and awards

    Section 13 and Section 44A enforcement of foreign court judgments, and Part II enforcement of foreign arbitral awards under the New York Convention. Includes the limited public-policy and arbitrability defences.

  8. Supreme Court of India practice — Advocate-on-Record

    Special Leave Petitions under Article 136, civil appeals under Section 62 IBC and other statutory appeals, Article 32 writ petitions, transfer petitions, review petitions, and curative petitions. Filings, vakalatnamas, and conduct of matters through the AOR.

The view from the firm

Commercial litigation rewards three things: a clean record, a tight pleading, and a brief that addresses the bench’s actual concern. The brief that cites three judgments and resolves the only question the bench is asking wins more often than the brief that cites thirty. The firm prepares matters with that discipline. A list of dates that is properly indexed, a written statement that does not concede what does not need to be conceded, and an argument that opens with the dispositive point and ends before exhaustion sets in.

Supreme Court practice is a separate discipline. The Advocate-on-Record designation is procedural — the AOR holds the right to file and to act — but the practice itself is about which questions of law are worth taking up. Most matters do not survive the SLP threshold, and most that do are decided on a single point. The firm conducts AOR practice with that filter applied: which question of law is at issue, whether the question is fit for the apex court, and whether the SLP is structured around that question rather than around facts that the apex court will not review.

Limitation, jurisdiction, and forum are the three defences that decide more commercial litigation than the merits. The firm’s pre-suit work for plaintiffs, and pre-summons work for defendants, is concentrated on these three. A suit filed at the wrong forum is dismissed and re-filed at cost; a suit filed beyond limitation is dismissed and not re-filed at all; a suit filed without the necessary jurisdictional facts is met with a Section 9A application that costs months. The cheapest commercial litigation is the one whose preliminary architecture was right.

Deeper references

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