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Commercial Courts Act, 2015: An Empirical Impact Evaluation
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The Commercial Courts Act, 2015, was enacted by the NDA government as part of numerous legislative reforms to improve India’s economic growth, and boost its image as an investment destination. The Bill tabled in 2015 focused on raising India’s ranking in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business index. For this, it made several modifications to the process of civil litation under the Civil Procedure Code. In 2018, the Act underwent some major amendments, including the reduction of minimum valuation of commercial cases from INR 1 crores to INR 3 lakhs. Given that the Act has witnessed several shifts in goalposts and objectives over the years of discourse, we have undertaken a comprehensive review of this historicity, to unravel the legislative intent behind setting up exclusive commercial courts. Furthermore, we have also empirically gathered data to evaluate how effectively the Commercial Courts Act has been implemented, and how far has it attained its stated objective of expediting high-value commercial litigation. In this background, our impact evaluation study has found that through this Act, while accomplishing political optics, the government has failed to address systemic challenges of the poor litigation culture in India. Moreover, the implementation of the Act is haphazard and erratic, which has adversely impacted its effectiveness as a set of procedural reforms for commercial litigations.
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Authors
Vaidehi Misra
Senior Resident Fellow
Vaidehi was a Senior Resident Fellow working in the area of Judicial Reforms. She has a B.A.LLB. (Hons.) degree from Jindal Global Law School, Sonipat and an LLM from the University of California, Berkeley with a focus on jurisprudence and social policy.
Ameen Jauhar
Former Senior Resident Fellow and Lead, ALTR
Ameen was a Senior Resident Fellow at Vidhi, and led the Centre for Applied Law and Technology Research (ALTR). His interest and research focus lies in AI ethics, and the governance of AI. Within ALTR, he has been leading the team's collaborative research on data trusts, and artificial intelligence. Ameen has also worked on the intersection of technology and the justice system, as a senior fellow working on the JALDI mission's engagement with the Supreme Court of India's AI and E-Courts' committees. Ameen has a formal educational background in social research methods and evidence-based policy. He completed his master’s programme from the Institute of Education (University College London), focusing on the use of research evidence in policy processes, and was awarded an MSc. with an overall distinction. Before this, he completed his undergraduate legal studies from the W.B. National University of Juridical Sciences [B.A. LL.B. (Hons.)] in 2012. Prior to Vidhi, Ameen worked at J. Sagar Associates, in the firm’s regulatory and policy team. He has practised in the Supreme Court of India, the Delhi High Court, and numerous tribunals.
Institution
District judiciary
Tags
Efficiency
Efficiency
Judicial Data
Judicial Performance
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