Commercial Courts Act | Documents Being Voluminous No Excuse For Their Belated Production : Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Thursday (July 9) held that a mere 'voluminous nature' of the evidence does not constitute a "reasonable cause" for their belated production under the Commercial Courts Act, 2015.

“…it is well established that the plaintiff when leading evidence, is expected to not only produce all documents but also properly anticipate the questions that may be put to its witnesses by the other side. What cannot be countenanced is a stop and go or a piecemeal approach. Voluminous evidence too, is entirely an uninspiring ground.”, observed a bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh.

The Court dismissed an appeal filed against the Delhi High Court's decision, which had disallowed the Appellant's plea seeking to place on record additional evidences/documents after the conclusion of the cross-examination of the main witness.

Initially, an original civil suit was filed before the High Court, which was renumbered as a commercial suit following the enactment of the Act. The Appellant sought to place on record certain additional documents, and the High Court allowed the same in 2018. However, after the cross-examination of its principal witness concluded in May 2023, LMT filed a second application seeking to introduce further emails, vendor agreements and backend server data, along with a prayer to recall its witness.

The Delhi High Court rejected the application in February 2025, prompting the appeal before the Supreme Court.

Before the Supreme Court, the Appellant argued that the additional documents could not be produced earlier because of the sheer volume of emails exchanged between the parties, the complexity of tracking multiple email trails with attachments, and the fact that certain issues emerged only during cross-examination.

Rejecting these submissions, the judgment authored by Justice Karol held that the explanation failed to satisfy the requirement of "reasonable cause" under Order XI Rule 1(5) of the Code of Civil Procedure as amended by the Commercial Courts Act.

“…on a combined reading of Order XI Rule 1(4) and (5) it flows that the plaintiff is obliged to file document in its possession along with the plaint though it can seek leave to file and rely on file additional documents, if so desired, within 30 days of filing of the suit and that too after making out a reasonable cause for non-disclosure thereof. Reasonable cause and justification explaining the subsequent discovery thereof needs to be well established.”, the Court cited Sudhir Kumar vs. Vinay Kumar G.B.

The Court observed that the documents sought to be produced had always remained in the plaintiff's possession and could have been disclosed either along with the plaint or during the earlier opportunity when additional documents had already been permitted.

“One round of additional evidence was already allowed to be produced and placed on record. All the documents that are sought to be produced by way of the present application were in the possession of LMT, both at the time of filing the plaint and the subsequent additional evidence. If the present application is allowed, what this Court would be essentially doing is condoning a piecemeal approach to the proceedings of a commercial suit the procedure for which has entirely been conceived for promoting the ease of business and recognising the need for expediency in resolving high stakes disputes.”, the Court observed.

“It cannot be disputed that the suit originally initiated on 27th May 2015, was renumbered and registered as a commercial suit under the CCA on 30th January 2018, the very same date on which the appellant's first application for placing on record the additional documents stood allowed and it was only on 18th November 2023 i.e., after a period of more than 5 years that a subsequent application taking the very same plea was filed which stood rejected on 12th February 2025, finding LMT not to have furnished any reasonable cause or justifiable explanation.”, the Court noted.

In terms of the aforesaid, the appeal was dismissed.

Cause Title: M/S. LEVITATE MOBILE TECHNOLOGIES PVT. LTD. VERSUS M/S. STANDARD CHARTERED BANK & ANR.

Citation : 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 658

Click here to download judgment

Appearance:

For Petitioner(s) :Mr. Gopal Shankarnarayanan, Sr. Adv. Ms. Preety Makkar, AOR Mr. Abhimanyu Garg, Adv. Ms. Aditi Aggarwal, Adv. Mr. Shourya Dasgupta, Adv. Mr. Madhav Gupta, Adv. Mr. Tushar Srivastava, Adv.

For Respondent(s) :Mr. Sanjay Gupta, Adv. Mr. Ateev Mathur, Adv. Mr. Manish Paliwal, AOR Mr. Aasheesh Gupta, Adv. Ms. Jagriti Ahuja, Adv. Mr. Anmol Mehta, Adv. Ms. Trupti Das, Adv.