Case Search at Commercial Courts in India

Jurisdiction Guide · Commercial Courts

Updated for 2026 · Claw Editorial

Commercial disputes in India, from a supply contract gone wrong to a shareholders’ dispute or a franchising dispute, do not go through the ordinary civil court system once the value crosses a threshold. They go through a separate, purpose-built structure created by the Commercial Courts Act, 2015. That structure is exactly what makes searching for a commercial court case harder than searching for an ordinary civil suit: the same dispute can sit at a district level Commercial Court, at the Commercial Division of a High Court, or on appeal at a Commercial Appellate Division, each with its own portal and numbering. This guide explains how that structure works, where the records actually live, and what to check before you conclude a case does not exist.

01Why commercial court search is its own puzzle

A "commercial court case" is not one thing in India. It is a case that has been routed into a special track because of what it is about and how much it is worth, and that routing decides which court actually holds the record.

The same kind of dispute can sit at three different levels

A contract dispute worth Rs 5 lakh between two traders may be heard by a Commercial Court at the district level. A similar dispute worth several crores, filed directly in a High Court that has original civil jurisdiction, sits with that High Court’s Commercial Division instead. An appeal from either one goes to a Commercial Appellate Division. So before you can search, you have to know which of these three levels your matter, or the matter you are checking on the other side, actually landed in.

Case type labels are not uniform

Courts do not use one common label for a commercial matter. A commercial suit at the Delhi High Court, for instance, carries the case type CS(COMM), while district level Commercial Courts and other High Courts use their own naming for commercial suits, applications, and appeals. If you search using the wrong case type or assume a naming pattern from one court applies at another, you can miss a case that is right there in the record.

Specified value decides the forum, and it can be argued

Whether a dispute even qualifies as a commercial dispute, and which court hears it, turns on its "Specified Value", broadly the value of the subject matter or relief claimed. Since 2018 this threshold has been Rs 3 lakh. Because that determination is not always straightforward, a matter can occasionally be re-routed between an ordinary civil court and a Commercial Court as the case proceeds, which is one more reason the record you are looking for may not be where you first expect it.

02How Commercial Courts are structured

The Commercial Courts Act, 2015 (amended in 2018) created a three tier structure for commercial disputes, replacing the earlier practice of routing them through ordinary civil courts.

• Commercial Courts, at the district level: State governments notify Commercial Courts, usually presided over by a District Judge or an officer of that rank, to hear commercial suits of Specified Value filed within that district.
• Commercial Division, within certain High Courts: High Courts that have ordinary original civil jurisdiction, meaning they can hear a commercial suit filed directly rather than only on appeal, namely Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, and Himachal Pradesh, each have a Commercial Division that hears commercial suits of Specified Value filed on their original side.
• Commercial Appellate Division, within every High Court: Appeals from a Commercial Court or a Commercial Division go to a Commercial Appellate Division of the relevant High Court, with a tighter appeal timeline than an ordinary civil appeal.

What counts as a commercial dispute

The Act defines "commercial dispute" broadly. It covers, among other things, ordinary transactions of merchants and traders, mercantile documents, export and import of goods, contracts for the sale of goods or supply of services, joint venture and shareholders’ agreements, mergers and acquisitions, franchising, distribution and licensing agreements, intellectual property rights, insurance and re-insurance, construction and infrastructure contracts, and technology development contracts. If a dispute falls in one of these categories and meets the Specified Value, it is a commercial dispute for this purpose, regardless of which forum eventually hears it.

Faster procedure, tighter timelines

Commercial Courts and Divisions follow a case management procedure with fixed timelines: a defendant must generally file a written statement within 30 days, extendable up to 120 days on payment of costs, after which the right to file is forfeited, and courts are expected to hold structured case management hearings to fix issues, disclosure, and evidence dates. Judgments are meant to be pronounced within 90 days of the conclusion of arguments. This is faster than the pace of an ordinary civil suit, which is one reason parties and their counsel need to track a commercial matter closely once it is filed.

A commercial court case is defined by what it is about and how much it is worth, not by which building it sits in. That routing is exactly what makes it easy to search in the wrong place.

03Searching district level Commercial Courts

Most district level Commercial Courts are part of the regular district court system and are covered by the eCourts Services portal at services.ecourts.gov.in. To search, select the state and district as usual, then look for the specific court establishment or complex named "Commercial Court" (or, in some states, a designated Additional District Judge court handling commercial matters) within that district’s list of courts.

Once inside the correct court, the search paths are the same as for any district court matter: CNR number, case number, party name, or filing number. The CNR number remains the fastest and most reliable route where you have it, since it does not depend on knowing the exact commercial court designation or spelling of a party’s name.

The practical difficulty here is a step earlier than the search itself: knowing that a dispute was, in fact, routed to the Commercial Court rather than an ordinary civil court in the same district. If you are not certain, it is worth checking both, particularly for matters filed close to the Rs 3 lakh threshold.

04Searching the Commercial Division of a High Court

For a commercial suit filed directly in a High Court with ordinary original civil jurisdiction, the case sits with that court’s own Commercial Division and is searchable only through that High Court’s own case status portal, not through the district level eCourts search.

Each High Court uses its own case type label for commercial matters. At the Delhi High Court, for example, a commercial suit is registered with the case type CS(COMM), and a commercial appeal or arbitration petition arising from a commercial dispute carries its own related label. Other High Courts with a Commercial Division use their own conventions. If you do not know the exact label a particular High Court uses, search by party name first, and use whatever result comes back to identify the correct case type for future reference.

Appeals to the Commercial Appellate Division of the same High Court are registered separately, with their own case number, and are not automatically linked in search results to the original Commercial Division matter. If you are tracking a dispute through an appeal, search for both the original case number and the appeal case number, and keep a note of both, since the two are held as separate records.

Once you have a final order or judgment from a Commercial Division or Commercial Appellate Division, obtaining a certified copy for filing or citation follows the usual High Court process. See how to get certified copies of court orders in India for that step.

05The pre-institution mediation gap

Before most commercial suits can even be filed, Section 12A of the Commercial Courts Act requires the plaintiff to attempt pre-institution mediation, unless the suit seeks urgent interim relief. This step is administered separately, through the Legal Services Authorities under the Pre-Institution Mediation and Settlement (PIMS) framework, not through the court that will eventually hear the case if mediation fails.

This creates a genuine search gap. A dispute can be actively in pre-institution mediation, sometimes for up to three months and occasionally longer with consent, without any record of it appearing on eCourts or a High Court case status page, because no suit has been filed yet. If you are trying to establish whether a party has, or is about to have, a commercial dispute against them, a "no results" search on the court portal does not rule that out. It only means either the dispute has not been filed as a suit, or mediation is still underway.

06Common search problems

A few problems come up repeatedly for anyone regularly searching commercial court records.

Searching the wrong forum

Because routing depends on Specified Value and subject matter, a case you expect to find at a Commercial Court can instead be sitting in an ordinary civil court, or vice versa, particularly for older matters filed before the 2018 amendment lowered the threshold. If a search comes back empty, check the ordinary civil docket for the same district before assuming the case does not exist.

Case numbers change on appeal

As noted above, a Commercial Appellate Division appeal gets an entirely new case number, with no automatic cross-reference back to the original Commercial Court or Commercial Division matter in a basic search. Keeping a running note of both numbers from the point a matter is first filed is the simplest safeguard.

Inconsistent naming across courts

Because each Commercial Court and each High Court’s Commercial Division uses its own case type convention, a search technique that works at one court does not transfer directly to another. Party name search, tried across both possible forums and, where relevant, both the district and the High Court, is the most dependable fallback when a specific case number or type is not known.

Judgments from the Commercial Appellate Division as precedent

Rulings from the Commercial Division and Commercial Appellate Divisions of High Courts, especially on contract interpretation, arbitration, and intellectual property, are increasingly cited as precedent. For citation grade research into these judgments rather than status tracking of a live matter, a legal research database with full text search and verified citations is the more suitable tool than a case status portal.

For teams building a litigation strategy around commercial disputes, whether that means preparing for a filing, tracking an ongoing matter, or researching precedent, it also helps to have the right analysis tools once the case record is in hand. See AI litigation strategy tools in India for that side of the workflow.

07Where Claw fits

Claw is an all-in-one legaltech platform for Indian advocates, law firms, and corporate legal teams, combining AI-based case search, an AI legal assistant (Legal GPT), case management, and compliance automation across all Indian courts and tribunals.

For commercial court matters specifically, Claw is relevant on both sides of this guide. Its case search product, built for citation grade research, covers all 25 High Courts and the Supreme Court, which includes the Commercial Division and Commercial Appellate Division judgments handed down by the five High Courts with original civil jurisdiction and appellate commercial benches across the country. That AI search understands the legal question being asked rather than relying on exact keyword or case type matching, which helps when commercial case naming conventions differ from court to court.

On the tracking side, Claw’s case management module covers 8,200 plus courts across India, including district level courts where Commercial Courts sit. Once a matter is added, whether it started at a district Commercial Court or a High Court Commercial Division, Claw pulls automatic status and order updates, sends hearing reminders, and keeps a shared calendar, which matters given how tightly commercial matters are timed under the Act. For a matter that moves from a Commercial Court through an appeal to a Commercial Appellate Division, tracking both case numbers in one place removes the manual note-keeping this guide describes above.

08Frequently asked questions