Gurugram Commercial Court: Business Suits for Gurugram, Manesar and Sohna

What goes to the Gurugram commercial court

If the dispute is commercial, it's linked to Gurugram district and Rs 3 lakh or more is at stake, the district's commercial court hears it. What's 'commercial' comes from Section 2(1)(c) of the Commercial Courts Act, 2015. The net is wide. Goods sold and supplied, services, construction and infrastructure work, franchises and distributorships, joint ventures, shareholder and partnership agreements, carriage of goods, export and import, insurance, technology and software deals, and leases of premises used only for trade or business are all in. So are suits over trademarks, copyright and designs.

Rs 3 lakh is the specified value under Section 2(1)(i), as amended in 2018. Section 12 tells you how to count it. For a money claim, it's the amount claimed plus interest worked out up to the filing date. So a Rs 2.7 lakh principal with Rs 40,000 of interest is a commercial suit. It has to follow the commercial rules, strict deadlines and all.

Claims under Rs 3 lakh go to the ordinary civil courts, and a dispute that isn't commercial stays outside the Act however large it is, the common Gurugram example being a homebuyer against a builder, whose case goes to Haryana RERA at Gurugram or a consumer commission. If you can't tell where yours fits, the which court will hear my case page lays out the value and jurisdiction rules.

Which judge sits as the commercial court in Gurugram

Back in April 2016, Haryana notified a commercial court for each of its districts, with the Punjab and Haryana High Court's concurrence. The officer picked to preside in each district then was its First Additional District Judge. That was then. Later orders shuffle postings and designations, and a district with Gurugram's caseload may spread commercial work across more than one judge. So the safe way to put it is this. Your suit lands before whichever court holds the Commercial Court designation for Gurugram district on your filing date.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has no ordinary original civil jurisdiction, so there's no High Court Commercial Division taking suits directly. That leaves the district-level commercial court hearing every commercial suit of Rs 3 lakh and above from Gurugram. No upper limit. A Rs 5 crore claim against a Gurugram company is filed in Gurugram. Against a Delhi company, the same claim could go to the Delhi High Court.

The district takes in Gurugram city, Manesar, Sohna, Pataudi, Farrukhnagar and the tehsils around them, and commercial suits from every one of those places are heard at district headquarters. Not locally. The sub-divisional civil courts don't take commercial suits of Rs 3 lakh and above.

The 2026 fire and the shift to the Tower of Justice: what it means for your case

May 2026 brought a fire to the record room of Gurugram's old district court complex in Civil Lines. Many files burned. Part of the building was declared unsafe. For a few weeks the courts sat in a government guest house and took up mostly urgent matters. On 9 July 2026 the Punjab and Haryana High Court ordered the courts shifted to the new judicial complex, the Tower of Justice, which was inaugurated that same month, July 2026.

If your commercial suit was pending in Gurugram before mid-2026, check three things. First, does the court still have your complete file, or do parts of the record need rebuilding from the parties' copies? Second, look up the next date on the eCourts services website against your CNR number. Many matters were adjourned in bulk. Third, find out which courtroom and floor your court is on now.

Where records were lost, courts generally let the parties reconstruct them from certified copies and their own sets of pleadings and documents. That's one reason we keep a full indexed copy of everything we file. If you've changed lawyers and don't have your own copy, ask for one now. This week. The people who remember the case won't be around forever.

Where each kind of business claim goes in Gurugram

The rules a Gurugram commercial suit runs on

Gurugram or Delhi: picking the right court

Plenty of Gurugram disputes have two possible homes, and where you file isn't a small decision. Section 20 of the Code of Civil Procedure opens up the defendant's place of residence or business, and any place where the cause of action arose, whole or partly. Think of a Gurugram company whose registered office is in Delhi. Or a Delhi buyer who took delivery at a Manesar warehouse. Both could face suit in either city.

And the two cities run things differently. In Gurugram it's a single commercial court track without any ceiling, Haryana's court fee schedule, and appeals up to Chandigarh. Delhi divides cases by size. Up to Rs 2 crore, you're in the district commercial court. Above that, it's the Delhi High Court's Commercial Division, Delhi's court fee rates, and appeals that stay within the High Court. There's talk of raising the Delhi district limit, and a proposal is under consideration, so check what the figure is when you file. That side is covered on our Delhi High Court Commercial Division page.

Next, the agreement itself. Multinationals and big Indian firms with offices in Cyber City and on Golf Course Road nearly always put in a clause giving jurisdiction only to courts at Gurugram, Delhi or Mumbai. If the named court could have heard the case anyway, judges usually hold the parties to it. Advocate B.K. Singh reads the jurisdiction and arbitration clauses before anything else on a Gurugram file. There's a good reason. A plaint filed in the wrong place can come back after months of dates.

Section 12A mediation in Gurugram

In Gurugram, Section 12A mediation is run by the District Legal Services Authority, Gurugram, following the Commercial Courts (Pre-Institution Mediation and Settlement) Rules, 2018. You fill in the prescribed form, describe the dispute and pay the fee. The Authority then writes to the other side. Silence or a refusal from them gets you a non-starter report, and with that you're free to file.

If both parties take part, the mediation has to finish within three months. With consent it can be extended by two. The time doesn't count towards limitation. And a settlement signed in mediation has the same status as an arbitral award, so it can be executed directly. No fresh suit.

Frankly, the Gurugram mediation route is more useful than people expect. Big companies with internal approval chains sometimes can't settle at all without a formal forum and a signed record. Mediation gives them both. If your suit needs urgent interim relief, say to stop a former distributor using your mark this week, Section 12A doesn't apply. But the plaint has to show that urgency on its face. Our mandatory mediation page explains the process in more detail.

How a Gurugram commercial suit moves, stage by stage

Most recovery and contract suits go through the stages below in this order. Injunction and summary suits jump around a bit.

1. Check limitation and read the contract

   Most money claims have to be filed within three years under the Limitation Act, 1963. A written acknowledgment or part payment restarts time. While you're at it, look for an arbitration clause and an exclusive jurisdiction clause.

2. Send a legal notice

   Say what's due, what interest you're claiming and the date by which you want it paid, and send it to the registered office as well as the Gurugram place of business. Email it too. Use the addresses of the people you actually dealt with.

3. Apply for mediation

   File the Section 12A application with the District Legal Services Authority, Gurugram, unless the suit needs urgent interim relief. Use the mediation period to get the plaint and documents ready.

4. File the plaint

   Along with the plaint go the statement of truth, every document, the list of documents, the Order XI declaration, the mediation report and the board resolution or authority letter. You pay court fee on the claim value, using the Haryana schedule.

5. Summons and defence

   Summons go out by court process, by post and by email. The defendant gets 30 days to file a written statement. With costs, 120 days at most. In a summary suit it has to appear within 10 days and seek leave within 10 days of the summons for judgment.

6. Documents and case management

   Each side admits or denies the other's documents on affidavit. Then the court holds the case management hearing under Order XVA and frames issues.

7. Evidence, arguments and judgment

   Evidence is on affidavit, with cross-examination, sometimes before a local commissioner. Written submissions go in before oral arguments. Judgment and decree follow.

8. Appeal or execution

   The losing side can appeal to the Punjab and Haryana High Court within 60 days. Without a stay, the decree holder files for execution in Gurugram.

If your claim rests on a signed agreement, an acknowledged invoice or a cheque, look hard at the summary suit route. When the defendant is refused leave to defend, a decree can come within months.

Time and money at each stage of a Gurugram commercial suit

What to have in the file for a Gurugram commercial suit

• The signed agreement, master services agreement, work order or purchase order, with every schedule and amendment
• Invoices, GST e-invoices and e-way bills
• Delivery challans, goods receipt notes, and the transporter's or warehouse's proof of delivery
• For services, the acceptance mails, timesheets, and completion or handover certificates
• Your accountant-certified ledger, plus bank statements showing the part payments
• Balance confirmations, the TDS certificates (Form 16A) the customer issued you, and any signed acknowledgment of debt
• Your legal notice, postal and courier receipts, proof the email was delivered, and their reply if they sent one
• The mediation application and the non-starter or failure report
• Board resolution or authority letter, incorporation certificate, and Udyam registration if you have it
• A certificate under Section 63 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 for emails, WhatsApp chats and other electronic records

Filing and listing in Gurugram, day to day

In Gurugram you file at the district courts' civil filing branch, either at the counter or on the eCourts e-filing portal where that's accepted. Staff there look at the court fee, the verification, the statement of truth, the Section 12A report and your document index. Fix whatever they object to. The suit's then registered, given a CNR number and sent to the commercial court. After that, dates, orders and the stage of the case all show up on the eCourts services website and app.

Cause lists go up on the Gurugram district court website, usually the evening before. Check it. Commercial matters share the court's day with arbitration petitions and other civil work, so a first hearing on summons and interim applications may last a few minutes. A one-page note of what you want on that date, with page numbers, really does help.

Lots of defendants here are companies whose offices are somewhere else. That slows service down. Give the court every address you've got (the registered office off the MCA master data, the GST principal place of business, the lot) plus email IDs that actually work. Email service is allowed under the amended Order V. And once a defendant's been served by email, it's hard for it to claim it didn't know.

How it plays out for different kinds of Gurugram business

Auto component makers and their sub-vendors in IMT Manesar and Udyog Vihar work on schedule agreements with big buyers, where debit notes for rejections and price revisions keep piling up. The fight is usually about reconciliation. Liability is rarely the issue. A clean item-wise reconciliation statement is the strongest thing you can bring. Garment exporters in Udyog Vihar tend to fight foreign buyers and freight forwarders instead, and for them the export, import and carriage disputes page is a better place to start.

Service companies in Cyber City, on Golf Course Road and on Sohna Road run into disputes over scope, acceptance and termination for convenience. Startups often have the reverse problem. They're the ones being sued, by a vendor, after a funding round slipped. Their trap is the 120-day rule for the written statement, and our written statement within 120 days page explains why it bites.

Along NH-48 and the KMP Expressway, warehousing and logistics businesses end up in lease and storage fights. Owners of office floors and mall units end up with tenants who've stopped paying. If the premises were let purely for business, that's a commercial dispute. A different problem is the ex-employee or partner who leaves with your client lists or source code. There the urgent remedy is an injunction, and our page on protecting confidential data and clients explains it.

Micro and small suppliers registered under the MSMED Act can pick between a suit and a reference to the MSE Facilitation Council under Section 18. The higher statutory interest rate applies either way. Our guide on interest on a recovery suit sets out the options.

Things we'd tell any client with a Gurugram case

• Keep your own complete file. After the 2026 fire, the parties who had an indexed copy of every filing were far better off than those who'd relied on the court record.
• Budget for Chandigarh. The Commercial Appellate Division of the Punjab and Haryana High Court sits in Chandigarh. If the case looks likely to go on appeal, count in the travel and the paper book work.
• Don't ignore the arbitration clause. If the contract has one, expect the other side to apply under Section 8 of the Arbitration Act to send the dispute to arbitration. The court usually will.
• Find out how healthy the company is before you sue. If the debtor is already in insolvency, a moratorium will stop your suit, and your claim goes to the resolution professional instead. The IBC side is covered on ncltlawyers.in.
• Sue the right entity. Gurugram groups often sign through one subsidiary and pay through another. Go after the one that signed the order, and add others only if there's a real basis.
• Turn up ready on every date. Commercial courts are strict about adjournments. A party that isn't ready gets hit with costs.

Interim orders, arbitration petitions and protecting assets in Gurugram

Three tools are available to the Gurugram commercial court for urgent protection: a temporary injunction under Order XXXIX CPC, attachment before judgment under Order XXXVIII Rule 5, and a receiver under Order XL. What people usually ask for here is one of a few things. Stopping a franchisee whose agreement has ended from using the brand. Blocking invocation of a performance bank guarantee where fraud or special equities can be shown. Keeping goods from being shifted out of a warehouse. The tests are explained on our urgent injunction page.

If there's an arbitration clause, a Section 9 petition for interim measures, before or during the arbitration, is also filed in the commercial court, along with certain other arbitration applications. For the arbitration itself and for challenges to awards, go to arbitrationlawyer.in.

In urgent requests that come to Advocate B.K. Singh, what usually decides it is proof of what's happening right now. Photos of stock being loaded onto a truck. A dated listing of your product by a seller you never authorised. A bank statement showing funds leaving. Courts act on specific facts filed with the plaint far more readily than on worry.

Appeal at Chandigarh, and execution back in Gurugram

Appeals from the Gurugram commercial court go to Chandigarh, to the Punjab and Haryana High Court's Commercial Appellate Division. You get 60 days, under Section 13 of the Act. Interim orders are appealable only when they appear in Order XLIII CPC. Section 8 shuts out civil revisions against them. For how appeals get listed up there, see our Punjab and Haryana High Court page.

Appealing doesn't freeze execution by itself. The appellant needs a stay, and for a money decree courts often want all or part of the amount deposited before they'll grant one. Without a stay, the decree holder can file an execution petition in Gurugram under Order XXI CPC and seek attachment of bank accounts, receivables and property. Execution courts have been told, in Rahul S. Shah v. Jinendra Kumar Gandhi (2021), to decide such petitions ordinarily within six months.

When the judgment debtor keeps its assets in Delhi or another state, the decree can be sent for execution to the court there. How to trace and attach those assets is on our execution of decree page.

What to do this week if your dispute is in Gurugram

Take three dates, the last unpaid invoice, the last payment and the last written acknowledgment, and work out your limitation from them. Find the contract. Read its jurisdiction and arbitration clauses. Then sort every document by date and write a one-page chronology. It's dull work. But that one page is often what turns a two-hour first meeting into a forty-minute one.

Defendants should note the exact day the summons reached them, and check what kind of suit it is. An ordinary commercial suit gives you 30 days, stretchable to 120, but a summary suit gives you just 10 days to enter appearance, and people miss that because the papers look much the same. Miss either deadline and the right to defend can go. Need someone who's in the Gurugram courts regularly? Our commercial court lawyer in Gurugram page has the details.

If you'd like your contract, invoices or summons checked before you decide on a notice, mediation or a suit in Gurugram, send them to Advocate B.K. Singh's team through the contact page.