40 courts designated as commercial courts in State

The Legal department in its order, dated October 9, has designated principal district and sessions courts or additional district and sessions courts, handling arbitration cases, as designated commercial courts in all the 30 districts of Karnataka.

With this, the department has scrapped its previous order, dated July 31, 2018, designating three courts —two in Bengaluru and one in Ballari as commercial courts.

Now, there will be 40 designated commercial courts in Karnataka.

In Dakshina Kannada, courts of First Additional District and Sessions Judge and IV Additional District and Sessions Judge have been designated as commercial courts. While in Udupi, Principal District and Sessions court has been designated as commercial court.

As per the order in 2018, one additional court was set up as commercial court for Bengaluru urban and rural districts at Bengaluru city civil court and another additional court for other districts in Mysuru and Bengaluru divisions also at Bengaluru city civil court. The court at Ballari was catering to 15 districts in Belagavi and Kalaburagi divisions.

Without the commercial courts in Dakshina Kannada, the litigants were forced to travel to Bengaluru. The Kanara Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) had been pressing for the setting up these courts at the distrct-level for the benefit of the litigants.

The move of the government will ensure that all commercial cases pending in the three commercial courts will be re-directed to the designated courts in the districts. It will also clarify the doubts in the minds of legal fraternity and court staff on the cases that can come under the ambit of commercial courts, said Prakash Naik serving as shirasthedar in legal service centre, District Courts Complex, Mangaluru.

The disputes relating to Rs 1 crore and above will be disposed by the commercial division of the high court.