Report No. 14

Table I

Table Showing The Average Disposal of Suits Per Day in The City Civil Court

Serial No.	Year	Suits Instituted inclusive of transferred suits from the High Court	Suits disposed of	Total Number of working days	Number of working days Number of working days per year on Civil Side	Average of Judges sitting	Average disposal per day
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1	1948	902	166	62	56	1.2	3
2	1949	2325	1274	282	204	1.4	4
3	1950	2400	1664	117	216	1.5	5
4	1951	3300	2385	609	190	3.2	4
5	1952	3558	2917	578	192	3	5
6	1953	2603	2516	492	196	2.5	5
7	1954	3000	2397	584	196	2.5	4
8	1955	3184	3242	863	193	4.5	4
9	1956	2940	3090	805	193	4.5	4
10	1957	1552	1448	393	88	4.5	4
	ending June	25764	21099

Note.- This Table does not include the average disposal per day in respect of matters under Arbitration Act, Public Trust Act, Displaced Persons (Debts Adjustment) Act, etc., and the matters required to be disposed by a Judge sitting in chambers under the rules of the Bombay City Civil Court.

Table II

Comparative Table Showing The Institution, Disposal and Pendency of Original Suits In The City Civil Court, Bombay and The High Court, Bombay (In Exercise of Its Ordinary Original Civil Jurisdiction) During The Years 1953, 1954 and 1955.

			Disposed of
Court	Pending at the beginning of the year	Total for disposal	Without contest	After contest	Otherwise	Pending at the close of the Year	Pending over a year
	1953 1954 1955	1953 1954 1955	1953 1954 1955	1953 1954 1955	1953 1954 1955	1953 1954 1955	1953 1954 1954
City Civil Court	4268 4386 5041	6902 7438 8291	2405 2168 2918	95 193 266	16 29 58	4386 5048 5049	2744 3112 2946
High Court	2369 2520 2349	3918 3902 2910	9421 1075 571	456 478 492	.. .. ..	2520 2349 1847	1584 1573 1583

21. Recommendation (Limiting jurisdiction of city civil courts) (In Bombay).-

We are of the view that the High Court's jurisdiction should be restored in all cases exceeding Rs. 10,000 in value. The number of such cases between Rs. 10,000 and Rs. 25,000 is not very large as will be seen from the following Table.

Table showing the number of suits instituted in the City Civil Court, Bombay valued between Rs. 10,000 and Rs, 25,000 and the number of such suits pending disposal as on the 1st February, 1957.

Year	Instituted	Suits pending as on 1st February, 1957
1950	46	Nil
1951	541	20
1952	493	15
1953	461	79
1954	514	179
1955	504	205
1956	464	250
	3023	748

22. Recommendation (Raising jurisdiction of city civil court) (In Calcutta).-

Although the city civil court has been functioning in Calcutta since February 1957, its jurisdiction is very much lower than in Madras and in Bombay, being only upto five thousand rupees in commercial causes. It is true that opinion of commercial institutions in Bengal to which we have already referred was insistent on their litigation being dealt with exclusively by the High Court. It was this insistence which led the West Bengal Judicial Reforms Committee to recommend that the city civil court's jurisdiction in commercial cases should not exceed five thousand rupees.

We have, however, in another place, examined the extraordinary conditions that prevail on the original side of the High Court in Calcutta notwithstanding the increase in the strength of that court from time to time. Year by year, till 1956, the number of institutions has been considerably in excess of the number of disposals with the result that in 1953, the number of one-year old suits pending on the original side of the Calcutta High Court was over nine thousand. In view of this state of affairs, we think it is imperative that that court should be relieved even of commercial suits upto the value of ten thousand rupees.

This measure may also be supported on the ground that having regard to the fall in the value of money, stakes in suits upto the amount of ten thousand rupees in the presidency towns cannot be said to be large. The small cause courts in Calcutta and Bombay have jurisdiction extending upto two and three thousand rupees. We would, therefore, recommend that the city civil court, Calcutta, be also invested with jurisdiction to deal with suits of value not exceeding Rs, 10,000 including suits on mortgage.

Transfer of pending suits to that court.- We further recommend that suits not exceeding that value at present pending in the High Court be transferred to the city civil court for disposal by an appropriate legislative measure. When the City Civil Court Act was passed in Bengal in 1953, provision was made in it prohibiting transfer to that court of pending litigation in the High Court within the limits of the jurisdiction conferred on the city civil court.

This was rather unfortunate. The evidence before us disclosed that the Act which was passed in 1953 had come into force only early in 1957. We have been informed that the court had to carry on only with new institutions and that some of the judges of that court were without work. The transfer of cases pending in the High Court, which we have recommended, will appreciably relieve congestion in the High Court, and find work for the judges of the city civil court.

23. Summary of recommendations.-

Our recommendations can be summarised as follows:-

(1)The High Courts of Calcutta, Madras and Bombay should continue to exercise their ordinary original civil jurisdiction.

(2) Such jurisdiction should extend to all matters exceeding Rs. 10,000 in value.

(3) The jurisdiction of the city civil courts in Madras and Bombay should be reduced to Rs. 10,000.

(4) The restrictions upon the jurisdiction of the Calcutta City Civil Court as to commercial causes and mortgage suits should be abolished and that court should be empowered to try cases of all types upto a value not exceeding Rs. 10,000.

(5) All cases pending on the original side of the Calcutta High Court falling within the jurisdiction of the city civil court should be transferred to the latter.

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