Commercial Courts Act, 2015

The Commercial Courts Act, 2015 creates a specialised adjudicatory track within the ordinary civil judiciary for commercial disputes of a specified value. It distributes original and appellate jurisdiction among designated district-level courts and specialised benches of High Courts.

Courts of first instance

The appropriate State Government, after consultation with the High Court, may constitute Commercial Courts at the district level, including courts below the District Judge level where the pecuniary jurisdiction so requires.

• In territories where a High Court exercises ordinary original civil jurisdiction, a Commercial Division of that High Court hears commercial disputes falling within its territorial and pecuniary jurisdiction.
• Commercial Divisions consist of one or more single-judge benches constituted by the Chief Justice from High Court judges experienced in commercial disputes.

Appellate hierarchy

The Act provides a single specialised appellate tier, determined by the level of the court that decided the dispute.

• Appeals from Commercial Courts below the District Judge level lie to a Commercial Appellate Court constituted at the District Judge level.
• Appeals from district judge-level Commercial Courts and from a High Court's Commercial Division lie to the High Court's Commercial Appellate Division, which consists of one or more Division Benches.
• Appeals must generally be filed within 60 days, subject to the categories of appealable judgments and orders recognised by the Act.

Jurisdictional threshold and design

Following the 2018 amendment, the statutory minimum specified value is Rs 3 lakh, subject to a higher notified value. The framework therefore combines pecuniary and territorial allocation with judicial specialisation, while retaining Commercial Courts and Divisions within the regular court system.