By Our Editorial Team
First publised on 2026-11-12 13:10:31
The Supreme Court has rightly refused to let litigants treat the High Courts as a marketplace. By transferring a commercial suit between a Karnataka firm and a Tamil Nadu firm from Delhi to Madras, it has restated a basic rule. Territorial jurisdiction in more than one court does not entitle a party to pick the one it likes.
The order of October 28 says that no High Court is better suited than another to a category of disputes. That belief, the bench said, is misguided. High Courts are equal constitutional courts, and a hierarchy among them exists only in the minds of those who profit from it. The Court was also clear that the transfer was not about convenience alone. It was about discouraging the practice.
The practice is widespread. In November 2025 the Supreme Court moved a patent suit from Delhi to Bombay where both companies were based in Mumbai. Earlier this month the Delhi High Court itself returned 17 commercial IP plaints because the links to the capital were thin, online availability and investigator purchases among them. In August it dismissed a PIL with costs of Rs 5 lakh after the petitioner failed to disclose a similar case pending in Bombay. Such filings burden the defendant, who must defend far from home, and they crowd a docket that belongs first to Delhi's own litigants.
The principle needs care in its application. A citizen with a genuine claim against an authority located in Delhi cannot be turned away on grounds of convenience, as the Supreme Court held in June. The test is a real and substantial connection to the forum. A head office, a website and a trap purchase do not meet it. The same test should apply to celebrities who carry personality-rights suits from Mumbai to Delhi. Urgency and anonymous online defendants are real considerations, but a forum's reputation is not a link to it.
Parliament should now settle the law. Section 20 of the Code of Civil Procedure and the special forum clauses in the Trade Marks and Copyright Acts should say plainly what link is enough. Until then, the Bar should read the Court's message closely. A dispute between two southern businesses belongs in a southern court, and that is no insult to Delhi.







