How Much Does a Commercial Court Case Cost in Delhi? Court Fee and Other Costs

What a Delhi commercial case costs, in brief

If you're the plaintiff, the government and procedural costs of a Delhi commercial suit are small next to the claim. Court fee is ad valorem. It goes up with the amount you claim, and once you're past a few lakh it settles at a little under one percent. Then there's the Section 12A mediation fee, a one-time slab amount between Rs 15,000 and Rs 75,000 that the parties share. Filing, copies, translation and evidence add something smaller. Your lawyer's fees sit outside all this. They're agreed with you in writing.

What worries clients most is the cost they can't see on day one. In commercial disputes the losing side ordinarily pays the winner's costs, and that can include legal fees. It cuts both ways. A strong claim gets cheaper in the end, because costs come back with the decree. A weak claim, or a stubborn defence, gets dearer.

So the honest answer comes in two halves. What it costs to start is predictable, and you can work it out from your claim figure before you file. What it costs in total depends on how hard the other side fights, how long it runs and whether you win. Nobody can promise you that.

Every cost head on one page

Court fee: your biggest fixed cost

Delhi charges court fee under Article 1 of Schedule I to the Court Fees Act, 1870, as that Act applies in Delhi. Past Rs 50,000, the fee goes up by a fixed step for each Rs 5,000 of claim. That step comes to just under one percent. Some planning figures, rounded: a Rs 25 lakh claim pays about Rs 27,000, a Rs 1 crore claim about Rs 1 lakh, and a Rs 5 crore claim about Rs 4.9 lakh. Rounded, mind. Check the current numbers before filing.

Court fee is calculated on principal plus interest worked out to the filing date. No special commercial rate exists. A Rs 40 lakh commercial suit pays exactly what a Rs 40 lakh ordinary civil suit pays, and a High Court suit pays on the same schedule as a district court suit. You pay it as e-court fee, linked to your e-filing.

People miss two things. If the dispute settles in pre-institution mediation, there's no suit and so no court fee at all. And if a suit that's already filed settles through court-referred mediation, conciliation or Lok Adalat, the plaintiff can ask for the court fee back under Section 16 of the Court Fees Act. We go through the arithmetic, valuation mistakes and refunds in our guide on court fee for a recovery suit in Delhi.

What Section 12A mediation costs

Unless your suit really needs urgent interim relief, you have to apply first for pre-institution mediation under Section 12A of the Commercial Courts Act, 2015. The fee comes from the Commercial Courts (Pre-Institution Mediation and Settlement) Rules, 2018. You pay Rs 1,000 to apply. After that there's a one-time fee that depends on the claim. Claims of Rs 3 lakh to Rs 10 lakh pay Rs 15,000. From Rs 10 lakh to Rs 50 lakh it's Rs 30,000, and from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore, Rs 40,000. Rs 1 crore to Rs 3 crore attracts Rs 50,000. Above Rs 3 crore, Rs 75,000. If both sides take part, they split it equally. The schedule can be revised, so check with the legal services authority what's current.

Next to court fee, it's small change. And it can get you a quick result. A mediated settlement is signed by both parties and the mediator, and it has the status of an arbitral award, so you can enforce it like a decree. If the other side doesn't turn up, the authority gives a non-starter report and you're free to file. Either way, the time spent in mediation doesn't count against limitation. Our pre-institution mediation page has tips for using it well.

How lawyers charge (we can't give numbers)

Bar Council of India rules don't let us advertise fee amounts. And frankly, a figure given without seeing your file wouldn't mean much anyway. What we can do is explain how commercial litigation in Delhi is usually billed, so you can compare quotes on the same basis.

Billing by stage is the common pattern. Drafting and filing, interim applications, pleadings and documents, evidence, final arguments, execution. Some lawyers charge per effective hearing instead. Others mix a stage fee with an appearance fee. Advocates aren't allowed to charge a fee tied to the result, like a cut of whatever's recovered. The Bar Council rules forbid it. If a senior counsel is briefed for an important High Court hearing, that's billed separately. Get the structure in writing, including what counts as extra, such as travel to another city or a fresh application.

Two tax and accounts points. When an advocate or a firm of advocates supplies legal services to a business entity, GST is usually paid by the business itself under reverse charge, so your accounts team should provide for it. Confirm how it applies to your entity with your chartered accountant. Second, when costs are awarded later, the court looks at fees actually incurred. Keep the invoice and receipt for every payment. There's more in our guide on how a commercial court lawyer charges in Delhi and on our process and fees page.

The small costs that pile up in a long case

• Process fee. You pay a small fee to issue summons to each defendant, whether by registered post, courier, email or sometimes the court's bailiff. Five defendants served three ways cost more than one served once.
• Vakalatnama and welfare stamp. Every vakalatnama in Delhi needs an Advocates Welfare Fund stamp. It's a small amount. The filing counter still won't take your papers without it.
• Affidavits and attestation. The statement of truth on the plaint, the Order XI affidavit of documents, every single application. Each needs an affidavit sworn before an oath commissioner or a notary.
• Scanning and digital signatures. E-filing wants searchable PDFs and a digital signature or e-Sign. If you've got years of account statements and a few hundred GST invoices, getting them ready properly takes real time and some money.
• Translations. Hindi documents, or ones in any other language, may need English translations, particularly in the Delhi High Court. Long ledgers and agreements get expensive.
• Electronic evidence certificate. Emails, WhatsApp chats and records from your accounting software need a certificate under Section 63 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023. Your own IT person can often sign it. Sometimes you'll need an outside technician.
• Local Commissioner fee. Evidence in the Delhi High Court is often recorded before a Local Commissioner, and the court fixes that fee. In IP suits, a commission to inspect premises or seize goods has its own separate fee.
• Certified copies, travel and witnesses. Appeal and execution both need certified copies of the judgment and decree. Then there are witnesses coming in from outside Delhi, and your own staff losing whole days at Saket or Tis Hazari. Those are costs too.

Could you end up paying the other side's costs?

Yes. For commercial disputes, the Commercial Courts Act, 2015 substituted a new Section 35 into the CPC. Its general rule is that whoever loses pays the winner's costs. Those costs cover witness fees and expenses, legal fees and expenses, and other expenses of the proceedings. The court can depart from the rule, but only with recorded reasons, and it looks hard at how each side behaved. Was the claim or defence frivolous? Did someone cause delay, or turn down a reasonable offer to settle? Did a party win only part of what it asked for?

Costs also land mid-case. File the written statement after 30 days, even inside the 120-day outer limit, and you'll usually be put on costs. Ask for an adjournment without good reason and you pay. Deny documents unreasonably at the Order XI admission and denial stage, and costs can follow. Individually these sums are modest. They do tell you what the judge thinks of you.

In business terms, a well-documented claim is cheaper than it looks. A weak one is dearer than it looks, sometimes by a lot once the other side's costs are added. Test it honestly first. Our guide on actual costs in a commercial court and who pays them explains how judges assess them.

Stage by stage: time, spend and risk

What it costs to defend

Defendants pay no court fee on a written statement. What costs them is the clock. The written statement is due within 30 days of service, and the court can stretch that only to 120 days, normally on costs. Miss 120 days and the right to file is gone. The Supreme Court said so in SCG Contracts v. K.S. Chamankar (2019). After that? The defence gets much harder and much more expensive to run.

Counterclaim for money and you pay ad valorem court fee on it, same as any plaintiff. In a summary suit under Order XXXVII, leave to defend can come with a condition that you deposit all or part of the claim, which can be a big cash outlay. And after a money decree, an appellant who wants a stay is usually asked to deposit the decretal amount or give security under Order XLI of the CPC.

These figures often shape strategy. If you've only got a partial defence, it may be cheaper to admit and pay the undisputed part early and fight the rest. The costs rules come down hard on a blanket denial of money that was obviously owed.

Is the Delhi High Court more expensive than a district court?

Not on court fee. The schedule is identical. A Rs 3 crore claim pays the same fee in the High Court, where it belongs, as it would have paid in a district court had the limit been higher. The difference is in what happens around the fee. In the High Court, pleadings run before a Joint Registrar. Evidence often goes before a Local Commissioner whose fee you share. Written submissions are expected. Senior counsel get briefed more often for the big hearings. Put together, a High Court suit usually costs more in professional and incidental terms than a district court suit of the same difficulty.

But cost isn't how you choose. Suits above Rs 2 crore go to the Commercial Division of the Delhi High Court, and suits up to Rs 2 crore go to the district commercial courts, unless the limit changes. The line, and the proposal to move it, are explained in our guide on which court hears a commercial dispute above Rs 2 crore.

Across NCR, court fee is a state matter. A suit in Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurugram or Faridabad pays under the UP or Haryana schedule, and neither matches Delhi's. On a large claim the gap can be big. If both a Delhi court and an NCR court have territorial jurisdiction, fee is one factor. So are how fast each court moves and where the defendant's assets are. Check each state's current schedule before you pick.

Cutting the cost without weakening the case

The cheapest suit is the one you never file. A clear legal notice, then a serious go at Section 12A mediation, gets money back in a fair number of files, and a mediated settlement carries no court fee. Treat mediation as a negotiation with a deadline. It isn't a box to tick.

If you have to sue, pick the shortest procedure your papers will support. Where the claim rests on a written contract, an invoice accepted in writing, a cheque or a promissory note, a summary suit under Order XXXVII makes the defendant show a real defence before it's allowed to contest. In an ordinary commercial suit, an Order XIII-A application for summary judgment can finish the case without a trial if the defence has no real prospect of success. Both can cut short the evidence stage, which in most contested suits is where the bulk of the time, the lawyer's hours and the Local Commissioner's sittings get used up.

Disclose every document at the start. Get the Section 63 certificate ready early, and keep one witness who genuinely knows the account, ideally the person who actually chased the payments. Late documents need applications, applications need hearings, and hearings cost money. And don't split a claim to keep each piece under a limit or to save fee today. Order II Rule 2 of the CPC can shut you out of the part you left out, permanently.

Registered micro and small suppliers can go to the MSME Facilitation Council under Section 18 of the MSMED Act, 2006. No ad valorem fee. Interest runs at three times the RBI bank rate. If your contract has an arbitration clause, institutional arbitration has its own cost structure, which our guide on DIAC arbitration fees lays out. Compare routes on total cost and on how enforceable the result is. Not just on the first fee.

What you can get back if you win

A money decree usually gives you the principal, interest up to the suit, interest during the suit and after the decree under Section 34 of the CPC at whatever rate the court thinks reasonable, and costs. Court fee is nearly always allowed in costs, because it's fixed and on record. Legal fees are assessed by the court, and the figure allowed may be lower than what you paid. Don't build a budget that assumes every rupee comes back.

The real ceiling is collection. A costs decree is worth what the defendant can actually pay. When a client asks Advocate B.K. Singh what a case will cost, the first thing he looks at isn't the fee schedule. It's whether the debtor has a running business, a bank account that's actually in use, and property or receivables that can be attached. If not, a short, sharp settlement may well beat a long suit. Our guide on checking whether your debtor has assets before you sue shows you how.

Building a litigation budget before you file

Boards and partners want a number. This is how to get one that survives questioning.

1. Pin down the claim figure

   Reconcile the ledger. Take out credit notes and part payments, then add interest to a realistic filing date. That single figure drives the court fee, the mediation slab and which court you go to.

2. Price the fixed government costs

   Work out court fee on the Delhi schedule, the mediation fee for your slab, and process fee per defendant. Schedules get revised now and then, so check the figures in force.

3. Get the lawyer's fee broken down by stage

   Ask for a written structure that covers drafting, interim applications, pleadings, evidence, arguments and execution, and spells out what counts as extra. Ask too how hearings in between the main stages are billed.

4. Add incidentals and a cushion

   Scanning, translations, affidavits, certified copies, High Court Local Commissioner fees, travel for witnesses. Then add a line for costs a court might order against you if you lose part of the case.

5. Weigh it against what you'll realistically recover

   Set the budget against what you can actually expect to get back, and when, given the debtor's assets and how long a contested suit takes. For the timeline, see our guide on how long a commercial suit takes.

6. Pick the route, then revisit the numbers

   Choose settlement, summary suit, ordinary suit, MSME Council or arbitration on the figures. Look at the budget again at the end of pleadings, and once more before evidence. By then you'll know a lot more about the defence.

What to bring so a lawyer can estimate your costs properly

When a suit isn't worth what it costs

Litigation in India doesn't just cost rupees. It eats management time for two or three years. Think of a small claim against a customer you'd like to keep, a debt owed by a company that has shut down with nothing left, or a claim that rests only on spoken promises. A full suit may not make sense for any of them. A structured settlement, a payment plan backed by post-dated cheques, or writing the debt off for tax purposes could be the better business call.

If the debtor is a company with a large default and you're a financial or operational creditor, insolvency might be another lever. It's a collective process, though, not a recovery suit, and we cover it on ncltlawyers.in. Where your papers are strong and the debtor has assets, a Delhi commercial suit usually costs little compared with the claim, and court fee and costs come back with the decree. The full recovery route is on our page about money recovery suits.

Your to-do list for this week

Get a reconciled ledger of the unpaid account and an interest working from your accounts team. Note the date of the oldest unpaid invoice, and any written acknowledgment, so the limitation position is clear. Pull together what you know about the debtor's business and assets. With those papers in front of us, a realistic cost estimate for each route takes one short meeting. Our own fees for that work are discussed at the first meeting and agreed in writing.

When a budget question comes to Advocate B.K. Singh, he usually gives two numbers: what it costs to get a decree, and what it costs to collect on it. Businesses decide better when they see both. If you're thinking about a recovery suit and want an estimate based on your own papers, send your invoices, ledger and contract to Advocate B.K. Singh's team through the contact page.