The Delhi High Court has laid down practical guidelines for when summary judgment under Order XIII-A of the Code of Civil Procedure, as applicable to commercial suits, is appropriate — addressing a recurring uncertainty over how rigorously a defendant's asserted defence must be scrutinised before a court concludes there is 'no real prospect of successfully defending the claim.'
The Court emphasised that summary judgment is meant for cases where the defence raised is demonstrably unsustainable on the material already on record, not a vehicle for resolving genuinely disputed questions of fact that require oral evidence and cross-examination — but equally cautioned against treating summary judgment as available only in the most extreme, undeniable cases, which would defeat the provision's purpose of securing early disposal in commercial suits.
The guidance gives commercial litigants and their counsel a clearer practical framework for deciding whether to press for summary judgment, or to resist an application for it, in the Commercial Courts of Delhi and elsewhere — an increasingly important tool given the emphasis on speedy disposal that runs through the Commercial Courts Act regime.