Important Point – Even if a case is pending as on date of bringing in Act, 2015, such pending cases will be continued to be tried by Commercial Division of High Court.

VALMIKI J. MEHTA, J (ORAL)

CS(OS) Nos. 1180/2011, 1438/2009, 2599/2010, 2903/2012, 865/2012, 2342/2010 & 550/2008

1. Irrespective of the reason why each individual suit or transfer petition or pending amendment application seeking enhancement of pecuniary jurisdiction is listed before this Court, the issue to be decided by this Court is the interpretation of the Commercial Courts, Commercial Division and Commercial Appellate Division of High Courts Act, 2015 (in short the Act of 2015) when it uses the expression “filed or pending” in the first proviso of Section 7 thereof. The issue is that whether the expression “filed or pending” means that this Court will entertain all pending matters even though this Court does not have pecuniary jurisdiction to entertain the suit.

2. The Commercial Courts, Commercial Division and Commercial Appellate Division of High Courts Ordinance, 2015 (Ordinance, 2015) came into effect from 23.10.2015. Section 7 and the first proviso to Section 7 of the Ordinance, 2015 read as under:

“All suits and applications relating to commercial disputes of a Specified Value filed in a High Court having ordinary original civil jurisdiction shall be heard and disposed of by the Commercial Division of that High Court:

PROVIDED that all suits and applications relating to commercial disputes, stipulated by an Act to lie in a court not inferior to a District Court, and filed on the original side of the High Court, shall be heard and disposed of by the Commercial Division of the High Court:” (underlining added)

3. The first proviso of Section 7 of the Ordinance, 2015 stated that the suits and applications relating to commercial disputes stipulated by a statute lie in a court not inferior to a District Court and filed on the original side of the High Court shall be heard and disposed by the Commercial Division of the High Court. The words “and filed” used in the first proviso to Section 7 of the Ordinance, 2015 did refer to the cases which were filed in the High Court to be heard and disposed of by the High Court and which words in one manner can lead to the interpretation that as long as it was originally filed in the High Court, irrespective of the pecuniary jurisdiction of this pending suit not being of the specified value, High Court in its Commercial Division would, still continue to hear and dispose of the suit. However, equally another interpretation of the words ‘and filed’ could also be that if the suit was filed in the High Court, the High Court could only continue to hear and dispose of the suit if the High Court continued to have pecuniary jurisdiction i.e the suit had to be of a specified value as stated in the Ordinance, 2015. Therefore, possibly something was left unsaid by the legislature when it used the words “and filed” if these words were intended to continue to vest a Commercial Division of the High Court to try and dispose of the suit originally filed in the High Court although subsequently the High Court would not have pecuniary jurisdiction to try the matter including for the reason that the pecuniary jurisdiction of the suit was below the threshold limit of rupees one crore as required by the Ordinance, 2015.

4. On account of possibility of different interpretation of the words “and filed” found in the first proviso to Section 7 of the Ordinance, 2015, the appropriate authorities and the legislature moved in. This happened by two things. Firstly, the Government of India Cabinet, Press Information Bureau, issued a Press Note on 16.12.2015, i.e after passing of the Ordinance, 2015 and before passing of the Act of 2015 which succeeded the Ordinance, and in this Press Note which was issued it was made clear that the amendment was required to the first proviso to Section 7 of the Ordinance, 2015 so that there is no doubt remaining therein that the said first proviso to Section 7 will