How to File a Summary Suit Under Order 37 CPC: Step-by-Step

The quick version: filing a summary suit

You need four things in place before a summary suit can go in. A claim that fits Order XXXVII Rule 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908. A figure reconciled down to the last rupee. Section 12A pre-institution mediation finished, unless you have a real need for urgent interim relief. And a plaint drafted the way Order XXXVII and the commercial court rules demand. Once it's filed and summons go out, the case moves through two short windows of 10 days each. Both run against the defendant.

On paper the order 37 procedure looks short. Plaint, summons, appearance, summons for judgment, leave to defend, decree. That's all. In court, each of those stages has its own trap, and most of the plaintiff's work happens before filing, because what's in the plaint and its documents decides nearly everything that follows. We'll go through each step the way it actually plays out in the commercial courts at Saket, Tis Hazari, Karkardooma, Noida, Ghaziabad and Gurugram. If you first want to know whether this route suits your business at all, read our page on summary suits and why they're quicker.

First, check that your claim qualifies

Order XXXVII only covers a debt or liquidated demand in money, with or without interest. It must arise on a written contract, on an enactment that fixes the sum, on a guarantee, on bills of exchange, hundis and promissory notes, or for receivables assigned to you. 'Liquidated' just means the amount is fixed, or you can reach it with plain arithmetic from the document. Damages for breach don't qualify. Nor does any sum the court would have to assess for itself.

Not sure where your claim stands? Read our guide on the seven situations where a summary suit can be filed before going any further. If all you have is invoices and no signed contract, our guide on summary suits on invoices explains what extra proof tips the balance. From here on, we're assuming the claim fits.

From legal notice to decree: the full sequence

This is the usual order of events. Further down we spend longer on the steps where plaintiffs most often slip.

1. Get the account straight

   Work out the exact sum due, invoice by invoice, after credit notes, TDS and part payments. Decide the date interest runs from, and the rate the contract or the law really gives you.

2. Send the legal notice

   Demand the reconciled amount with interest within a fixed time, usually 15 days. Keep the dispatch and delivery proof. Whatever comes back, even silence, goes into your file.

3. Apply for Section 12A mediation

   If the suit doesn't truly need urgent interim relief, apply for pre-institution mediation to the District Legal Services Authority or the High Court Legal Services Committee. It can last up to three months. Two more if both sides agree.

4. Draft the plaint and papers

   The plaint carries the Order XXXVII words in its title and the statements Rule 2 asks for. With it go the statement of truth, the Order XI list of documents and its declaration, and the mediation report.

5. File it and clear objections

   File the suit (in Delhi that's normally e-filing), pay ad valorem court fee and process fee, and fix whatever the registry objects to within the time it gives.

6. Serve summons in Form 4

   The court issues summons in Form 4 of Appendix B, with a copy of the plaint and annexures. From service, the defendant has 10 days to enter appearance.

7. Serve the summons for judgment

   After appearance, you serve a summons for judgment in Form 4A. Your affidavit goes with it, verifying the cause of action and the amount and saying you believe there's no defence.

8. Answer the leave application

   The defendant gets 10 days from service of the summons for judgment to ask for leave. Keep your reply tight. Take each defence and point to the document that answers it.

9. Leave hearing, then decree or trial

   Three outcomes. The court refuses leave and decrees the suit. It grants leave on conditions, a deposit for instance. Or it grants leave unconditionally and the suit goes to trial.

10. Execute the decree

    If the decree isn't paid, file execution under Order XXI, with whatever you know about the defendant's bank accounts, receivables and property.

Step 1 up close: the figure, the notice, the paper trail

Most summary suits turn on the figure. Say your plaint claims Rs 14.6 lakh and the defendant shows that Rs 1.2 lakh of it was credited back for a short supply. The judge now sees a padded claim. Leave gets easier. So reconcile before anyone drafts a word. Take the ledger line by line against bank statements, credit notes, debit notes and the TDS entries in Form 26AS. If the buyer deducted TDS on your invoices, that deduction is a written admission that it accepted them. Print it.

Then the legal notice. No law requires one before a summary suit against a private party. We'd still send one. It fixes your demand, gives the debtor a last chance, and quite often pulls out a reply that either admits the debt or shows you the defence you'll be facing later. Keep it short and exact: which documents the claim rests on, the reconciled amount, the interest and why you're entitled to it, and how long they have to pay. Drafting is covered in our guide on legal notices for recovery of money.

A small trick from Advocate B.K. Singh's files. Before the formal notice goes, email the debtor's accounts team a plain request to confirm the balance as per your ledger. Accountants often reply out of habit, without asking the owner. That's useful. A signed or emailed balance confirmation is a written acknowledgment under Section 18 of the Limitation Act, 1963, so a fresh limitation period starts from it. In our experience it's also the single most useful page you'll have at the leave to defend stage.

Do you need Section 12A mediation first?

For a commercial summary suit, yes. The one exception is a suit that contemplates urgent interim relief. Section 12A of the Commercial Courts Act, 2015 makes pre-institution mediation compulsory for every other suit, and in Patil Automation v. Rakheja Engineers (2022) the Supreme Court held that a suit filed without it from 20 August 2022 is liable to be rejected. A plain money claim is rarely urgent in that sense. In most files, then, you mediate first. The exceptions and the case law are in our guide on whether a summary suit needs Section 12A mediation.

In Delhi you apply to the District Legal Services Authority for the district where the suit will be filed. For a High Court suit, it's the Delhi High Court Legal Services Committee. The authority sends notice to the other side. If they don't turn up, you get a non-starter report and can file. If they come and the talks fail, you get a failure report. And if it settles, the settlement has the status of an arbitral award and can be enforced like one.

Time spent in mediation is left out when limitation is counted. Don't let that relax you. Apply well before your three years run out, and keep the report safe, because it's filed with the plaint.

Which court, and what's the suit worth?

The suit is valued at what you claim: principal plus interest worked out to the date of filing. Section 12 of the Commercial Courts Act says how the specified value is computed. If that comes to Rs 3 lakh or more and the dispute is commercial, it belongs in a Commercial Court. In Delhi, claims up to Rs 2 crore go to the District Judge (Commercial Court) in the district courts. Above Rs 2 crore, it's the Commercial Division of the Delhi High Court. In July 2026 the High Court's Full Court recommended raising the district limit to Rs 10 crore. Check the current limit before you file.

Territory comes from Section 20 of the CPC. You can sue where the defendant lives or carries on business, or where the cause of action arose, wholly or in part. For a supplier, that might be where the order was accepted, where the goods were delivered, or where payment was due. Forum choice gets fuller treatment in our guide on where to file a summary suit.

Court fee is ad valorem. It's a percentage of the claim, set in slabs under each state's court fee law, and Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana all use different schedules. Check the current figure. You pay it in full at filing. Short court fee draws an objection, and if you don't make it good the plaint can be rejected.

What the plaint must say: Order XXXVII plus the commercial rules

Filing and scrutiny: what the registry looks for

The Delhi High Court and the Delhi district courts both take commercial suits by e-filing. You upload the plaint, documents, affidavits, vakalatnama and court fee, and the registry goes through the lot. Common objections are short court fee, no page numbers or index, an unsigned statement of truth, documents nobody can read, and a missing mediation report. You'll get time to fix them. The portal and its usual objections are explained in our guide on e-filing a commercial suit in Delhi.

Once the objections are cleared, the suit is listed before the commercial court. At the first hearing the judge looks over the plaint and, if it's in order, issues summons in Form 4 of Appendix B. You then file process fee and copies for service. Service can go by court process, speed post, courier and email, and Delhi's commercial courts routinely allow several modes at once. That alone can save weeks.

Serving summons, and the 10 days to appear

Summons go out with a copy of the plaint and every annexure. Under Order XXXVII Rule 3(1), the defendant can enter appearance in person or through an advocate within 10 days of service. It must also give your advocate notice of the appearance, with an address for service.

What if it doesn't appear in those 10 days? Rule 2(3) treats the allegations in the plaint as admitted, and you become entitled to a decree for the amount claimed, with interest at the rate specified and costs. Before passing that decree, though, the court will want to see that service was done properly. So keep the tracking reports, delivery proofs and email read receipts in order. That branch is covered in our guide on what happens if the defendant doesn't appear.

Plenty of defendants dodge service. Small companies that have quietly moved or shut their registered office are the usual culprits. If ordinary service fails, ask for substituted service under Order V Rule 20, which can include pasting the summons at the address and publishing it in a newspaper. Better still, check the company's current address on the MCA portal and the GST portal before you file. Then the summons reaches the right door first time.

The summons for judgment: the step people rush

Once the defendant appears, it's your move. You serve a summons for judgment in Form 4A, returnable not less than 10 days from service, with an affidavit that verifies the cause of action and the amount and states that, as far as you believe, there's no defence. That's Order XXXVII Rule 3(4). Until you serve it, the clock for leave to defend doesn't start.

Advocate B.K. Singh's advice here is blunt. Draft this affidavit as carefully as the plaint. It isn't a formality. The defendant's leave application will be read side by side with it, and if your affidavit already deals with the obvious defence (say, by pointing to the buyer's email accepting delivery and the eleven months without a single quality complaint), the defendant has to come up with something sharper to get leave. Form and timing are explained in our guide on the summons for judgment.

Serve it the day appearance is entered. If it lies in a drawer for two months, that's two months of delay you chose.

The leave to defend hearing: what the court can do

The defendant has 10 days from service of the summons for judgment to apply for leave to defend. The application is an affidavit, and it must disclose facts showing a defence. Without leave, a defendant in a summary suit can't file a written statement at all. You reply. The court hears both sides and applies the tests the Supreme Court laid down in IDBI Trusteeship Services v. Hubtown (2016).

A substantial defence gets unconditional leave. If there's a triable issue but the judge doubts the defendant's good faith, leave may come with conditions, like depositing all or part of the amount, or giving security. A frivolous or vexatious defence gets nothing: leave is refused and you're entitled to judgment straight away under Rule 3(6). And where the defendant admits part of the claim, no leave can be granted until that admitted sum is deposited in court. It helps to know how the other side thinks. Our page on leave to defend explains how defendants put these applications together.

If leave is granted, the defendant files a written statement and the suit runs like any ordinary commercial suit, with admission and denial of documents, a case management hearing, evidence and arguments. Even then, the summary route wasn't wasted. A deposit order means money is already sitting in court.

After the decree: interest, appeals, execution

The decree carries whatever interest the court awards. That's contractual interest up to the date of suit where the contract provides for it, and then interest during the suit and after decree under Section 34 of the CPC. In commercial transactions that can go above 6 percent, though ordinarily not beyond the contractual rate or the bank lending rate. Registered micro and small suppliers can claim interest at three times the RBI bank rate under Sections 15 and 16 of the MSMED Act, 2006.

The defendant can appeal within 60 days under Section 13 of the Commercial Courts Act, to the Commercial Appellate Court or the Commercial Appellate Division of the High Court. Separately, Order XXXVII Rule 4 lets a decree be set aside on special circumstances, for instance where the defendant was never properly served. Neither stops you filing for execution unless there's a stay. In money decrees, a stay usually comes with an order to deposit.

Execution is where a lot of decree holders find the debtor has nothing visible left. Don't wait for the decree to start looking. Trace assets while the suit is still pending: GST returns that show who the debtor sells to, MCA filings, the bank accounts it paid you from before, property records. Our guide on executing a summary suit decree goes further.

Time and costs at each stage (lawyer's fee not included)

Papers that go in with a summary suit

Is it any different in Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurugram or Faridabad?

The Order XXXVII steps don't change. The CPC applies across India. What changes is the court, the mediation authority, the court fee schedule and where appeals go. In Gautam Buddh Nagar and Ghaziabad, commercial suits are filed in the court designated as the district's Commercial Court, mediation goes to that district's Legal Services Authority, court fee follows the Uttar Pradesh schedule, and appeals lie to the Commercial Appellate Division of the Allahabad High Court. In Gurugram and Faridabad, you pay court fee under the Haryana schedule and appeal to the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Two practical points. E-filing practice and the modes of service a court will accept can differ from one district to the next, so check what the court concerned does now. And lists aren't equally heavy. Some district commercial courts are far busier than others, which affects how soon your summons for judgment gets heard. Neither is a reason to go to a court you aren't entitled to. But if Section 20 genuinely gives you a choice of two courts, it's fair to weigh how each one actually runs.

Five mistakes that push a summary suit off the fast track

• Asking for something Order XXXVII doesn't cover. Throw in damages, a declaration or an injunction and the suit falls outside Rule 2. Ask for the debt and interest, nothing more.
• A figure nobody reconciled. Forget the credit notes, returns or TDS and you've handed the defendant a ready-made triable issue.
• Skipping mediation, or doing it badly. Where no urgent relief is sought, a plaint without the Section 12A report can be thrown out at the very start.
• Keeping documents back. The commercial rules make it hard to bring in a document you didn't disclose with the plaint. And the leave hearing is decided on what's already on record.
• Sitting on it after appearance. Every week you don't serve the summons for judgment is a week gifted to the defendant. Our guides on mistakes people make when drafting summary suit plaints and why some summary suits drag on for years have more.

What to do this week

Get out the contract or purchase orders, the invoices, the ledger and the bank statements. Reconcile the figure yourself first. Write down the date of the last payment and of the last written acknowledgment. For most money claims, limitation is three years from when the amount fell due, and an acknowledgment or part payment starts it running again. Then send the balance confirmation request we described above.

If the number holds up and the papers fit Order XXXVII, the legal notice comes next, then the mediation application. How we take a summary suit from notice to decree is set out on our summary suit page.

Want someone to go through your papers before you file? Or to tell you whether anything in the law has moved since you last looked? Advocate B.K. Singh's team can be reached through the contact page.