Supreme Court refuses late documents in commercial suit, citing expediency of Commercial Courts Act

A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh dismissed Levitate Mobile’s appeal, holding that voluminous evidence cannot dilute the statutory rigour requiring timely disclosure.

The Supreme Court has refused to let a litigant reopen its documentary record midway through a commercial suit that has dragged on for over a decade. In M/s. Levitate Mobile Technologies Pvt. Ltd. v. M/s. Standard Chartered Bank & Anr., a division bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh dismissed the appellant’s challenge to a Delhi High Court order that had rejected its application to bring additional documents on record and recall a witness.

The Court held that even on the lower “reasonable cause” threshold, the appellant had shown no justification for producing documents that were in its possession from the start. The bench agreed with the Single Judge and found that permitting a piecemeal approach would defeat the objective of the Commercial Courts Act, 2015. The appeal was dismissed on 9 July 2026, with a direction that the suit be decided as expeditiously as possible.

How the dispute reached the Court

Standard Chartered Bank had approached Levitate Mobile Technologies to develop and manage a mobile application. A Professional Services Agreement was signed on 19 February 2013, and the app was launched on Android and iOS. Shortly after, the Bank instructed the developer to take the app down. Since the agreement contained a revenue-sharing clause, Levitate alleged losses.

The company sent a legal notice dated 15 April 2015 seeking Rs. 4,46,50,000 with interest at 18 percent per annum. When the claim was denied, it filed Civil Suit (OS) No. 1705 of 2015 before the High Court of Delhi. Pleadings were completed, and issues were framed on 16 November 2016. The suit was renumbered as CS(Comm.) 169 of 2018 on 30 January 2018, the same day an earlier application to place additional documents on record was allowed.

Evidence of PW-1, Sunil Jasuja, was completed on 9 May 2023. Levitate then filed IA No. 24359 of 2023 seeking to bring on record e-mails between the parties, agreements with other vendors, and backend server data, and to recall PW-1. The Single Judge rejected this by judgment dated 12 February 2025, applying a “reasonable cause” test and finding no explanation for the delay.

What the Court held on the standard and the delay

Levitate argued that the High Court had wrongly applied a “sufficient cause” standard when the correct test under Sudhir Kumar v. Vinay Kumar G.B. was “reasonable cause”. The bench accepted that the appellant may be correct on this point but declined to interfere.

Viewing the facts through the lens of reasonable cause, the Court found no justification. The suit was at the stage of plaintiff evidence, with issues framed in 2016 and the first witness examined only in 2023. After leading evidence of its own witness, the plaintiff sought to produce more documents on the ground that new facts had emerged during cross-examination.

The Court said a plaintiff leading evidence is expected to produce all documents and anticipate cross-examination. “What cannot be countenanced is a stop and go or a piecemeal approach,” the bench observed. Voluminous evidence, it added, was an “uninspiring ground” that could not water down the statutory rigour.

Reliance on the Commercial Courts Act scheme

The bench traced the scheme of the Commercial Courts Act, from the Law Commission’s 188th Report of 2003 under M. Jagannadha Rao, J., through the 253rd Report of 2015 under A.P. Shah, CJ (Retd.). It set out the statutory timelines built into the Act and the amended Civil Procedure Code to ensure speedy resolution of commercial disputes.

The Court relied on Ambalal Sarabhai Enterprises Ltd. v. K.S. Infraspace LLP for the proposition that the provisions require strict construction and are aimed at expediting disposal. It cited Patil Automation (P) Ltd. v. Rakheja Engineers (P) Ltd. on the mandatory character of timelines, and referred to State of Maharashtra v. Borse Bros. Engineers & Contractors (P) Ltd. on the limits of “sufficient cause” where speedy resolution is the legislative object.

Under Order XI Rule 1(4) of the CPC, applicable to commercial suits from 23 October 2015, additional documents may be filed within thirty days of filing the suit, on grounds of urgency and with leave of the Court, accompanied by a declaration that all relevant documents stand produced. That provision was already in force when the first application was filed.

Application to pending suits rejected

Levitate contended that the strict nature of the Act could not apply to its dispute, which predated the Act. The bench rejected this. Section 15, dealing with transfer of pending suits, provides that all suits and applications of specified value shall be transferred to the Commercial Division or Court, and that the procedures of the Act apply upon such transfer. The only exception is cases where judgment has been reserved.

The Court also noted that the grounds in the present application were substantially similar to those in the earlier application, IA No. 12696 of 2017, which had already been allowed. Those documents were e-mails between the parties said to have been discovered during preparation, and all documents now sought had been in Levitate’s possession from the outset.

The suit, originally initiated on 27 May 2015, was renumbered as a commercial suit on 30 January 2018 — the same day the first application for additional documents was allowed. The subsequent application raising the same plea was filed on 18 November 2023, more than five years later, and rejected on 12 February 2025.

Order

The Court agreed in full with the High Court’s conclusion and found no case for interference. The appeal was dismissed with a direction that the suit be decided as expeditiously as possible. No costs were awarded, and pending applications were disposed of.

Mr. Gopal Sankaranarayanan, senior counsel, appeared for the appellant. Mr. Sanjay Gupta and Mr. Ateev Mathur represented Standard Chartered Bank.