In short. Got a summons from a commercial court? Start work in week one. Don't wait for the last week. In a normal commercial suit your defence is due 30 days after service, and day 120 is the absolute end. A summary suit gives you just 10 days to enter appearance. This is written for companies, firms and traders across Delhi NCR facing a money or breach claim. Write down when you were served. Look for holes in the plaint, take any arbitration point at once, gather your own ledger and papers, and weigh up a claim of your own.
Is this your situation?
- A process server walked into your office with a summons and a plaint about two inches thick.
- The summons sat at reception, or with accounts, for a week or two before anyone senior saw it.
- You don't think you owe what they're claiming. Maybe nothing at all, because half the goods were defective and the rest came late.
- Your contract has an arbitration clause, and you can't understand why you're in court.
- They've sued you in a city you never did business in, and no mediation notice ever reached you.
- You've got your own claim against them, and you're wondering whether this is the moment to raise it.
- The summons mentions Order XXXVII somewhere, and you've no idea what that changes.
The short version
Commercial suits punish delay harder than any other civil case. A fixed clock starts the day you're served. In an ordinary commercial suit, the written statement has to be filed within 30 days. The court can extend that with costs, but never past 120 days from service. After that the right to file is gone for good. In a summary suit under Order XXXVII, you must enter appearance within 10 days. Then, once the summons for judgment is served, you get only 10 days to ask for leave to defend.
Inside those limits, a good defence gets built in a set order. Confirm what was served and when. Check whether the suit is in the right court, whether the plaintiff went through Section 12A mediation, and whether your contract sends the dispute to arbitration. Then pull your own records, answer the plaint paragraph by paragraph, disclose your documents, and decide on a counter-claim. The overall strategy is on our page about defending a commercial suit. This guide is narrower. It covers what to do from the moment the summons lands on your desk.
Using the first 30 days properly
Treat 30 days as the real deadline. The 120 days are an emergency reserve, nothing more. Courts do extend time, but only for recorded reasons and usually with costs, and every extension tells the judge your defence is running late. A defendant who files inside 30 days with a full set of documents starts on the front foot.
In week one, read the plaint and documents, note the service date and the next hearing, and spot any objection that must be raised at the threshold (arbitration, jurisdiction, mediation, limitation). In week two, gather your records and give your lawyer a written, dated account of what really happened. Week three is for going through the draft written statement and any counter-claim, and lining up whoever will sign the statement of truth. Week four: finalise, swear, file.
Most defendants can keep to that rhythm if the summons reaches the right desk on day one. It often doesn't. The cases that go wrong tend to lose their first fortnight before anyone with authority has even opened the plaint. Make it a rule in your business. Any envelope from a court goes to a named person the same day.
The clocks that start the day you're served
| What you got, or what you must do | Time limit | Costs to expect (not lawyer fees) | If you miss it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Summons in an ordinary commercial suit: file the written statement | 30 days from service. Extendable with costs, up to 120 days | Whatever costs the court orders for each extension | After 120 days the right to file is lost, and the court can move to judgment |
| Summons in a summary suit (Order XXXVII): enter appearance | 10 days from service | Small filing charges | The plaintiff can ask for a decree as if you'd admitted everything |
| Summons for judgment in a summary suit: apply for leave to defend | 10 days from service of the summons for judgment | The court may make a deposit a condition of leave | The plaintiff becomes entitled to judgment |
| Section 8 application to send the dispute to arbitration | No later than your first statement on the substance of the dispute | Arbitration costs later take the place of court costs | You'll usually lose the right to insist on arbitration |
| Counter-claim | Normally along with the written statement | Court fee on the counter-claim's value. Check the current schedule | You'd need a separate suit, with fresh mediation and fresh court fee |
| Affidavit admitting or denying the plaintiff's documents | Within 15 days after inspection is over | Costs if you deny a document without good reason | The documents may be treated as admitted |
| Application to set aside an ex parte decree | 30 days from the decree, or from when you learnt of it if summons wasn't duly served | Costs, and sometimes a deposit as a condition | The decree stands and can be executed |
Got a summons? First check exactly what was served
The first thing Advocate B.K. Singh looks at is the date and manner of service, and whether this is an ordinary commercial suit or a summary suit. Both deadlines run from service. So the date on the courier receipt or the process server's report matters far more than the day someone in your office got round to opening the envelope. If you were served by email, the email's date is likely to count as the date of service. Write it down. Then count forward 30 and 120 days on an actual calendar. Not in your head.
Then look at the papers. The cause title tells you the court. It might be a District Judge (Commercial Court) in a Delhi district complex like Saket, Tis Hazari or Karkardooma. It might be the Commercial Division of the Delhi High Court, for claims above Rs 2 crore. Or it could be the court designated as Commercial Court for a district in Uttar Pradesh or Haryana. A summary suit says so in its title and refers to Order XXXVII, and its summons will be in the form that demands appearance within 10 days. If that's what you're holding, skip the rest of this section and go straight to the summary suit part below.
Check whether an interim application came with the plaint (an injunction, say, or an attachment application) and whether the court has already passed an order on it. Search the case number on the eCourts services website or the Delhi High Court website. Defendants are sometimes served after an ex parte interim order has been made. That order may need answering before the written statement does.
The rules your defence has to follow
Order VIII Rule 1, CPC (commercial suits)
Your defence is due 30 days after you're served. More time is possible, but the judge has to record why, costs usually follow, and the outer wall is day 120. Past that, the right is gone and no court can accept the document. SCG Contracts (India) v. K.S. Chamankar Infrastructure (2019) settled this in the Supreme Court.
Order VIII Rules 3A and 5, CPC (commercial suits)
No blanket denials. Go through the plaint and say, point by point, what you accept, what you dispute (and why), and what you genuinely can't speak to. Then tell your side. Whatever you leave unanswered can be treated as accepted.
Order VIII Rules 6 and 6A, CPC
If the plaintiff owes you a fixed amount, you can knock it off its claim. A bigger or separate grievance can come in as a counter-claim. That gets heard alongside the main suit, as if it were a plaint of its own.
Order XI Rules 1, 3 and 4, CPC (commercial suits)
Every relevant paper you hold, or can get hold of, goes on a list filed along with your defence. Once both sides have seen each other's papers, each swears an affidavit saying which of the other side's documents it accepts. Any it rejects need a reason.
Order VII Rules 10 and 11, CPC; Section 12A, Commercial Courts Act, 2015
If the court has no jurisdiction, the plaint goes back to the plaintiff to file where it belongs. A suit the law bars can be thrown out at the threshold. That has happened to plaintiffs who skipped Section 12A mediation without a real need for urgent relief, following Patil Automation v. Rakheja Engineers, 2022.
Section 8, Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996
Where an arbitration clause covers the quarrel, the court has to send it to arbitration. The catch is timing. You must ask before, or at the latest along with, your first submission on the merits, and you must produce the original clause or a certified copy.
Right court? Commercial dispute? Mediation done?
Before getting into who owes what, poke at the suit. Does the dispute fit Section 2(1)(c) of the Commercial Courts Act, and is it worth Rs 3 lakh or more? Can this particular court hear it under Section 20 CPC? That turns on where your business runs, where the deal was struck and carried out, and whether the contract picks one city's courts. Did the plaintiff try Section 12A mediation first, or dress the plaint up as urgent to dodge it? And is some of the money more than three years old?
All of these can be argued. For a wrong-court point, you ask for the plaint to be handed back under Order VII Rule 10. Missing mediation, or a time-barred claim, calls for rejection under Order VII Rule 11. Yamini Manohar v. T.K.D. Keerthi (2023) is useful here. The Supreme Court looked at the plaint and its papers, not the label, to decide whether urgency was real. So a made-up injunction prayer, added only to get past mediation, can be attacked. We've set out these grounds in our guide on when a commercial court can reject a plaint at the first stage.
This is the part people get wrong. An objection, however good, doesn't pause anything. Defendants have sat waiting for their application to be heard, watched day 120 pass, and been refused more time. Don't be that defendant. Take the objection, repeat it inside your defence, and get the defence filed.
Arbitration clause in the contract? Decide now
If the dispute falls within an arbitration clause, you can ask the court to send it to arbitration under Section 8 of the Arbitration Act. The application has to be made no later than your first statement on the substance of the dispute. In practice, that means before the written statement or along with it. File the original arbitration agreement or a certified copy with it. If you file a full defence on the merits first and mention arbitration only afterwards, the court will likely hold that you've accepted its jurisdiction.
Think before you use it, though. Arbitration isn't always better for a defendant. You'll share the arbitrator's fees. If the claim is modest and your defence is strong on paper, a commercial suit may serve you just as well. But if the plaintiff has deliberately run to a court for a quick summary judgment, or picked a forum far away from you, arbitration under the agreed clause can even things up.
The written statement deadline keeps running while the Section 8 application is pending. So keep your written statement ready and follow the court's directions on when to file it. Questions about the arbitration itself (appointing the tribunal, interim measures and so on) are handled on arbitrationlawyer.in.
The written statement: what works and what doesn't
In a commercial suit the written statement can't be a general denial. Order VIII Rule 3A, as amended for commercial suits, makes you deal with every allegation. Admit it, deny it with reasons, or say it isn't within your knowledge and explain why. You also have to set out your own version. Write 'denied for want of knowledge' against something you obviously know, like whether a delivery reached you, and the court can treat it as an admission.
The good ones tell a short, dated story in the defendant's own words before the paragraph-wise reply starts. Picture a trader sued for Rs 22 lakh. In two pages, with dates, it says it rejected two consignments in writing within a week, paid for the rest, and never got the credit notes it was promised. That's far more convincing than denying every paragraph of the plaint one after another. Attach the documents that prove each step.
Raise every objection you plan to rely on, with reasons. Jurisdiction, valuation, limitation, mediation, arbitration, all of it. The written statement needs its own statement of truth, signed by someone who knows the facts. Our guide on what a statement of truth is and why a wrong one hurts covers the risks. How the 120 days are counted, and what costs courts impose for extensions, is on our page about the written statement deadline in commercial suits.
Your own claim: counter-claim and set-off
Plenty of defendants in commercial suits have a claim of their own. Damages for defective goods. Losses from delay. An advance they want back, or bills that were padded. Order VIII Rule 6A lets you bring that as a counter-claim in the same suit. The court treats it like a plaint, so it needs particulars, documents, a statement of truth and court fee on its value. The plaintiff then files its written statement to your counter-claim, and the two are tried together.
Set-off is narrower. Under Order VIII Rule 6 you can set off an ascertained sum the plaintiff owes you (an admitted credit note, for example) against its claim. Where the amounts aren't fixed but come out of the same transaction, like delay damages on the same purchase order, courts may allow an equitable set-off. Either way, plead it with figures. Hints don't count.
Decide early. A counter-claim filed with the written statement is simple. Raising it later is harder, and a separate suit means fresh mediation, another court fee and the risk of two courts reaching results that don't fit together. Your counter-claim also has its own limitation, counted up to the date you file it, not the date of the plaintiff's suit.
Your documents, and the plaintiff's
With the written statement you file a list of every document in your power, possession, control or custody that relates to the suit. Helpful or not. Copies of the ones you rely on go in too. If you hold documents back, they can be shut out later unless you show reasonable cause. Emails and WhatsApp chats count, and electronic records need a certificate under Section 63 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023.
Before reading the plaintiff's statement of account, Advocate B.K. Singh asks the client for its own ledger of the plaintiff's account and its bank statements for the same period. Then the two ledgers go side by side. The gaps between them are where most commercial defences turn up: a credit note nobody recorded, a payment never credited, a rate that was never agreed. A defendant who can point to specific entries is in a much stronger spot than one who just calls the claim 'inflated'.
Once pleadings close, each side inspects the other's documents and files an affidavit admitting or denying them under Order XI Rule 4, with reasons. A bare denial of a document you know is genuine, your own purchase order for instance, isn't a denial at all. It can attract costs. A lot of weak defences fall away at this stage. Next comes the case management hearing under Order XV-A, where the court frames the issues and sets the timetable for evidence.
From summons to first hearing, step by step
Note the service date and the type of suit
Write down when and how you were served, and whether it's an ordinary suit or a summary one. Mark the deadlines on a calendar and send them to everyone involved.
Look up the court record
Search the case online for the next date and any interim order already made. Get copies of any order, and of any documents that weren't served on you.
Engage your lawyer and file appearance
Sign the vakalatnama and have your advocate appear on the next date. In a summary suit, appearing within 10 days is a legal step in its own right, and missing it can cost you the case. It isn't a formality.
Find the threshold objections
Look for an arbitration clause, a jurisdiction problem, missing Section 12A mediation and limitation. Decide which ones to raise by application, and make sure every one of them also goes into the written statement.
Pull your records together
Get the contract, your ledger, bank statements, delivery and rejection records, emails and chats. Then write a dated note, in your own words, of what happened.
Draft the written statement and any counter-claim
Answer every paragraph specifically and give your own version, then plead set-off or counter-claim with actual figures and list all your documents.
Sign and file inside 30 days
The person who knows the facts should read and sign the statement of truth. File well before day 30. If an extension really can't be avoided, apply before time runs out and give reasons.
Get ready for inspection and admission or denial
After pleadings close, inspect the plaintiff's documents. Prepare your affidavit admitting or denying each one with reasons, within the time allowed.
What to gather for your defence
The court papers
- The summons, plaint and everything served with it, plus the envelope or email that shows the date
- Any interim application, and any order already passed on it
- The Section 12A notice or non-starter report, if one ever reached you
- Earlier legal notices from the plaintiff, and your replies
Your side of the deal
- The contract, purchase orders, work orders and rate agreements
- Your ledger of the plaintiff's account, and bank statements for that period
- Delivery challans, goods receipt notes, and every rejection or quality complaint
- Credit notes, debit notes, TDS certificates and GST records
Messages and authority
- Emails and WhatsApp chats with dates, exported in full (not screenshots of the bits you like)
- A board resolution or authority letter for whoever's going to sign
- A certificate under Section 63 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023 for electronic records
- The arbitration clause, if there is one, with the original agreement
Interim applications filed against you
A plaint often arrives with an urgent application tucked behind it. The plaintiff may want you stopped from selling stock, trading under a name, cashing a bank guarantee or touching some property. Or it may come under Order XXXVIII Rule 5, asking the court to make you put up security, or to freeze your assets before any judgment, because you're supposedly about to move them out of reach.
Fight these with facts. To attach before judgment, the plaintiff needs real proof you're trying to dodge a decree. Market gossip won't do. Show the factory's running, the bank accounts are active and nothing's been sold off, and the application usually has little left to stand on. If you've already been hit with an ex parte injunction, the plaintiff must hand over the full set of papers immediately, and you can move under Order XXXIX Rule 4 to have the order lifted or changed. Appeals against these orders go where Order XLIII permits.
If you can see a suit coming, say after a sharp legal notice, file a caveat under Section 148A CPC in whichever court it's likely to land. No interim order can then be passed without hearing you first. It's valid for 90 days.
A summary suit summons runs on a faster clock
An Order XXXVII summons changes the timing completely. You have to enter appearance within 10 days of service. The plaintiff then serves a summons for judgment. From that service, you get 10 days to apply for leave to defend, backed by an affidavit that discloses a real defence, with documents. Miss both and the plaintiff is entitled to a decree. It's that blunt.
The court decides leave on the tests laid down in IDBI Trusteeship Services v. Hubtown (2016). A substantial defence gets unconditional leave. A plausible but doubtful one may get leave if you deposit some or all of the amount. A sham defence gets nothing. Our page on leave to defend a summary suit explains the application, and our guide on defending a summary suit filed against you goes through the usual defences.
Which court, and what happens on the first date
That depends on the plaintiff's choice of forum. Within Delhi, claims up to Rs 2 crore sit with a District Judge (Commercial Court) at Saket, Tis Hazari, Karkardooma, Rohini, Dwarka or Patiala House, and anything larger goes to the High Court's Commercial Division. There's been talk of raising that Rs 2 crore line, so check where it stands today. Over the border in Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurugram and Faridabad, the district's designated Commercial Court takes every commercial suit, big or small. Appeals from those go up to Prayagraj or Chandigarh.
On the date printed in the summons, your lawyer files the vakalatnama and appears. Expect the court to sort out whether everyone's been served, deal with any pending urgent application, and give directions on pleadings. No witnesses. No trial. You probably won't speak at all. Still, a judge remembers which side came ready. There's a fuller account in our guide on what happens at the first hearing of a commercial suit.
Keep Order XIII-A in mind. Between service and the framing of issues, a commercial plaintiff can ask for judgment straight away, arguing your defence has no real chance. Woolly pleadings practically invite it. So does a story about verbal assurances set against signed paper. What shuts the door is a precise defence, backed by documents.
Buyers, service clients, guarantors, startups, big companies: how the defence changes
Buyers sued for the price of goods usually defend on quality, short supply or delay. Does it work? When there's a dated rejection or complaint close to delivery, yes. It falls flat when the first complaint shows up in the written statement. Service clients sued by vendors defend on acceptance and scope. They need the sign-off trail, the change requests and the defect reports. Guarantors and directors sued personally should check whether they actually signed a guarantee, and on what terms. A company's debt isn't automatically theirs.
Startups often get sued by vendors after a funding gap. The danger there is rarely the merits. It's the deadline. Founders are stretched thin and the summons sits unopened under a pile of other papers. Big companies have the opposite problem. The legal team gets the summons, but the documents are at a plant or regional office, and the person who actually knows the facts has since moved on. The fix is the same for both. Give the file a named owner from day one, and decide early who'll sign the statement of truth and give evidence later.
MSME suppliers sued by their buyers (for refund of an advance, say) should check whether they've got their own claim for delayed payment with statutory interest under the MSMED Act. If they do, the question is whether to bring it as a counter-claim or before the Facilitation Council.
When settling is the better defence
Not every suit should be fought to the end. If the plaintiff's documents are strong and your defence is really about needing time to pay, an early, well-drafted settlement is often worth more than two years of costs plus interest at a commercial rate. Commercial courts push settlement at every stage. The court can refer you to mediation even after the suit's been filed.
Settle on terms you can enforce and actually live with. A fixed payment schedule. A clear default clause. A withdrawal, or a decree recording the settlement. And an end to every related claim, including any criminal complaint over the same dealings. Don't sign an admission of the full amount in return for a vague promise of time. Our guide on settling a commercial suit without losing your rights explains how to structure it. While you negotiate, keep the written statement deadline in sight. Talks don't stop the clock.
An invented example: the event company and the AV rental firm
None of this happened. It's invented to show the timing. A Noida event company is sued at the Saket commercial court by an Okhla business that hires out speakers, mixers and stage lights. The claim is Rs 38 lakh of unpaid hire charges, with interest at 18 percent. Reception signs for the summons on 3 March. The director first sees it on 24 March. That's three weeks lost, with nine days of the first 30 remaining.
Within hours the file is with a lawyer. The hire agreement picks Delhi courts and says nothing about arbitration. No preliminary point, then. The company's books are more interesting. Rs 6.5 lakh went across in cash and UPI, and the plaintiff's account doesn't show it. Then there are the emails. Kit broke down at two big weddings, the company complained that same night both times, and it ended up refunding one of its own clients Rs 9 lakh.
It asks for a little more time, pays the costs ordered, and files on day 41. The defence answers invoice by invoice, attaches the payment trail and the complaint emails, and adds a counter-claim of Rs 9 lakh. The dispute is now about numbers on paper, not loud assertions. Later the court nudges both sides towards mediation, and talks open at around Rs 20 lakh rather than Rs 38 lakh. Nobody can promise where it ends. But there's a real defence on record, and only because the papers were dug out and filed in time.
Mistakes we see after a summons arrives
- Counting from the hearing date. The deadlines run from service. The first date in court has nothing to do with it.
- Waiting for an objection to be decided. An application on jurisdiction or mediation won't pause the 120-day clock.
- Arguing the merits before raising arbitration. File a full merits defence first and you've usually lost the arbitration clause.
- General denials. Writing 'denied for want of knowledge' against facts you plainly know can be read as an admission.
- Leaving out the documents that don't help. The other side often has them anyway, and the court can refuse late production.
- Sitting on a counter-claim. Bringing it later costs more, and by then it may be refused or time-barred.
- Switching off after filing. Miss the admission and denial stage, or a case management hearing, and a good written statement can come undone.
What to do this week
- Write down the service date. Count forward 30 and 120 days (or 10 days, if it's a summary suit).
- Look the case up online for the next date and any interim order.
- Read the contract for an arbitration clause and a jurisdiction clause.
- Get your own ledger and bank statements for the plaintiff's account out of accounts.
- Find the delivery, rejection and complaint records, with their dates.
- Decide who's going to sign the statement of truth and give evidence later on.
- Jot down any claim you have against the plaintiff, and roughly what it's worth.
- Brief your lawyer and sign the vakalatnama before the first hearing.
Where to go from here
The defendants who come through commercial suits in good shape usually aren't the ones with the cleverest arguments. They're the ones who read the plaint in week one, dug out their own records, and filed a specific written statement on time. If you've received a summons, read our page on defence strategy in a commercial suit next, along with the checklist for defending a commercial suit within 120 days.
If you've already been served, send the summons, the plaint and your own records to Advocate B.K. Singh's team through the contact page, so the deadlines and threshold objections can be checked straight away.
Frequently asked questions
Does the 30-day period run from when I got the summons or from when the case was filed?
From service of the summons on you. Not from the filing of the suit, and not from the first hearing date. Keep the envelope, courier receipt or email that shows the date. That one date fixes both the 30-day and the 120-day limits.
Can I file my written statement after 120 days if I have a good reason?
No. Not in a commercial suit. The Supreme Court treats day 120 as a hard wall that no judge can move. Miss it and you're not completely shut out. You can still question the plaintiff's witnesses and attack its case on its own evidence. You just can't tell your side of the story.
What if the summons went to an old office address?
Whether that's valid service depends on the facts, like whether it was your registered office or a place you carry on business. If you genuinely didn't get it, raise that quickly with proof. Don't treat it as a reason to wait. Act from the day you learn about the suit.
Do I have to attend the first hearing myself?
Usually not. Your advocate appears for you on the strength of the vakalatnama. In some matters, such as mediation or a settlement discussion, the court may want a company representative there, and your lawyer will tell you if that's needed.
Can I ask the plaintiff for documents it hasn't given me?
Yes. In commercial suits each side can inspect the other's documents after pleadings, and you can apply for discovery of specific documents you think the plaintiff holds. Ask early. The time for admission and denial runs from the end of inspection.
If I owe part of the money, should I just settle straight away?
Often it makes sense to admit and pay the undisputed part and fight the rest. That can cut interest and costs too. Any settlement should be in writing, with clear terms. And keep working on the written statement while you talk, because negotiations don't extend the deadline.
What happens if a decree is passed because I never appeared?
You can apply under Order IX Rule 13 to set aside the ex parte decree, within 30 days of the decree, or of learning about it if summons wasn't properly served. You'll have to show the summons wasn't duly served, or that sufficient cause kept you away. Courts often attach conditions, such as a deposit.
Will the court give me more time if the director who knows the facts is abroad?
Within the 120-day limit, courts may extend time for genuine reasons, usually with costs. Beyond it, they can't. Get the statement of truth sworn abroad, or authorise someone in India who knows the facts, well before the deadline.
Advocate B.K. Singh
Founder of B.K. Singh & Associates. MCA, LL.B., LL.M. More than twenty years in practice before the Supreme Court, the Delhi High Court, district and commercial courts in Delhi NCR, and tribunals.
This guide explains the law in general terms and is not legal advice. For advice on your own papers, contact the team.