The Karnataka government recently passed a state amendment to the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (CPC) and introduced case management hearings in civil trials.
Case management hearings are widely used across the world to streamline court proceedings by setting clear timelines for completing various stages of a case. These have proven to be an effective strategy in managing case flow leading to timely disposal of cases.
The amendment provides that the case management hearing must be conducted within four weeks of the completion of all pleadings. This hearing aims to streamline the proceedings in the case and avoid unnecessary adjournments by laying down a structured timeline for the remainder of the proceedings, including framing issues, listing and scheduling witness testimonies, filing evidence and setting deadlines for written and oral arguments.
This is a welcome experiment with the potential to massively shake up the way civil litigation is conducted in Karnataka. This article will analyse these amendments by examining their potential impact on case disposal and exploring challenges to implementation.
The procedural changes introduced through this amendment are almost identical to those mandated under the Commercial Courts Act, 2015 for commercial disputes. However, such a close replication of these provisions may not be well-suited to the district civil judiciary.
Firstly, there is no evidence to prove that case management hearings in the way they are currently being conducted in the commercial courts, have led to speedier disposal of cases. As per the data available on the Commercial Courts of Karnataka website, over 92% of the current cases pending in the dedicated commercial courts of Karnataka have had case management hearings. However, due to lack of any sort of comparative disposal numbers and timelines from commercial courts and the district civil judiciary on the same case type and stage-wise pendency numbers, the exact reasons for any kind of speedy disposal cannot be confidently determined.
Secondly, the Karnataka CPC Amendment mandates that arguments in all cases must be concluded within 24 months of the first case management hearing. This is also inspired by a similar provision for the commercial courts, which provides a shorter 6-month timeline for arguments in a case to be completed. However, neither of these timelines for disposing of cases seem to be grounded in empirical evidence. In fact, according to the 2024 data, the average time taken for trial and judgment in dedicated commercial courts in Bengaluru ranged from 2 months to 28 months, thus indicating that the 6-month requirement is not being adhered to consistently.
Mandating a uniform timeline for completing arguments in all civil cases overlooks the differences in their nature and complexity. Different civil cases require different timelines for their disposal based on their nature and complexity. For example, a civil case filed by a bank to recover dues from a customer could be disposed of faster than the two-year prescribed period, but a land acquisition case may take longer due to the complex nature of the case. Even case complexity can differ within similar types of cases. For example, a money suit filed by a bank to recover credit card dues from a customer could be disposed of more quickly than a money suit filed by a person to recover a loan given to another person on the basis of a contract.
Mandating fixed timelines for disposing of all civil cases also does not take into account the difference in workload between courts, even within the same district. According to data from the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), 2,664 cases were instituted in 2024 across the five Principal Civil Judge and JMFC courts in the Belagavi court complex, whereas 2,189 cases were filed in just two such courts located in Raibag village, also in Belagavi district. Assuming an equal distribution of cases within each court complex, each court in the Belagavi complex received approximately 333 cases, while each court in Raibag village received around 1,094 cases.
A detailed analysis of commercial courts to understand disposal timelines since the initiation of the case management hearings is necessary before replication of such requirements for other cases. Timelines for disposal of cases must factor in the complexity of cases and the actual workload of each court. Mandating timelines not based on the reality of the court risks embedding a sense of learned helplessness within the system and can also cause poor judicial decisions, as quantity may be given more importance than quality.
Another problem that remains unresolved is the implementation of these case management hearings. Without synced calendars both within a court complex and with other courts, adjournments may remain rampant, as one important factor for adjournments is clashing court hearings. If a lawyer has multiple hearings at the same time in different courts, they are unable to prepare or appear in all those cases. Further, consultations with lawyers practising in commercial courts also reveal that while a schedule is drawn up, adherence to it is not very strict, given how embedded the culture of adjournments is in the judicial system. Adjournments, especially mutual ones, can be easily taken. So the purpose of the case management hearing may become redundant if the implementation is not thought through.
Case management hearings can also not help with the execution of cases. Execution is the process through which a court enforces or implements its final judgment or decree. On average, in 2024, execution cases took over 13 months in the dedicated commercial courts in Bengaluru, which was much longer than the average total time taken to dispose of the actual case.
For civil cases, the stage of summons also causes delays; these cannot be resolved by the introduction of case management hearings. As per the data available on NJDG, in Bengaluru city civil courts, roughly 27% of the pending civil cases are stuck at the stage of summons. As per a 2019 DAKSH report titled Litigation Landscape: of Bengaluru Rural Courts, service of summons takes 273 days on average in Bengaluru Rural. Hence, merely introducing case management hearings may not be sufficient to reduce delays in the grand scheme of things. New Rules have been passed by the Karnataka government to allow service of notice and summons through email and courier to speed up the service of notices and summons, but their usage and efficacy remain to be seen.
While the Karnataka amendment is a promising step toward judicial efficiency, without tailored timelines, data transparency and serious thought on implementation, case management hearings risk becoming just another procedural checkbox rather than the transformative tool they are meant to be.
Atishya Kumar is a Senior Research Associate and Gokul is a Project Associate at Bengaluru-based think tank DAKSH. All views are personal.