The Madras High Court has been highly successful in early disposal of commercial cases ever since an exclusive commercial division and an appellate division were constituted under the provisions of the Commercial Courts Act of 2015.
Though 1,454 commercial cases were pending in the High Court as on December 4, 2017, the number had been reduced to 738 as on April 30 this year with the High Court having been able to consistently maintain over 100% of case clearance rate (CCR).
| NUMBER OF CASES PENDING AS ON APR 1, 2022 | NUMBER OF CASES INSTITUTED IN APRIL 2022 | NUMBER OF CASES DISPOSED OF IN APRIL 2022 | NUMBER OF CASES PENDING AS ON APRIL 30, 2022 | |
| MADRAS HIGH COURT- COMMERCIAL DIVISION | 754 | 29 | 45 | 738 |
| MADRAS HIGH COURT -COMMERCIAL APPELLATE DIVISION | 157 | 13 | 2 | 168 |
| PRINCIPAL SEAT -TOTAL | 911 | 42 | 47 | 906 |
| MADURAI BENCH -COMMERCIAL APPELLATE DIVISION | 11 | 0 | 0 | 11 |
| GRAND TOTAL | 922 | 42 | 47 | 917 |
The CCR gets calculated by comparing the number of new cases filed each year as against the number of cases that gets disposed of. In so far as the commercial cases were concerned, the High Court had been able to dispose of new cases and clear the backlog too.
The 2015 Act defines ‘commercial dispute’ to mean any transaction between merchants, bankers, financiers, traders, export or import of merchandise or services, issues relating to admiralty and maritime law, transactions relating to aircraft, carriage of goods and so on.
According to official statistics, the commercial division at the principal seat of the High Court in Chennai had cleared 10 cases in December 2017 and began 2018 with a pendency of 1,444 cases. That year, 238 new cases were filed and the court ended up disposing 329 cases.
The disposal continued to be higher than the institution of new cases even between 2019 and 2021. On April 1 this year, there were 754 commercial division cases pending in the High Court and 29 new cases were filed that month but by the end of the month, the court disposed of 45 cases.
Though an impressive rate of case disposal had been recorded in the commercial division led by single judges, the rate was not quite good when it came to commercial appellate division. There was only one appeal pending before the appellate division as on January 1, 2018.
About 22 more appeals were filed in 2018 but the court disposed of only two appeals that year. The trend continued year on year with the institution of appeals far exceeding the number disposed of by the court. As on April 30 this year, 168 appeals were pending disposal.
Since the Madurai Bench of the High Court does not have the original civil jurisdiction, all commercial division cases pertaining to the southern districts also get heard at the principal seat in Chennai. Only appeals get heard at Madurai and they are negligible in number.
