Book Review : Commentary on The Commercial Courts Act, 2015 by Sharath Chandran

The Civil Procedure Code, 1908 deals with the law surrounding procedure in civil disputes in the Country. This pre-independence code has been amended from time to time to suit the requirements of the society. Unfortunately, inspite of multiple efforts by various ruling establishments, our justice dispensation system suffers from what we may call as the 'tareekh pe tareekh' defect where procedural dilatory tactics are adopted by litigants/lawyers to prolong the trial and appeals. The Commercial Courts Act, 2015 was enacted by the Parliament to improve and supplement the Civil Procedure Code, 1908 with an objective to cure this defect. The statute book did not replace the existing procedural law but strengthened the commercial vertical of civil disputes making it efficient and effective.

As the age of the Commercial Courts Act, 2015 is comparatively less, the corresponding literature available on it is also scanty. I came across a recent commentary authored by Mr. Sharath Chandran, an advocate practicing before the Madras High Court on this subject and after going through and using it, I decided to share my review with our readers.

The Book, as the title suggests is the author's commentary on the Commercial Courts Act, 2015. Running into around 250 pages, the book published by Bloomsbury India is divided into fourteen chapters followed by a list of Annexures. Available in paperback edition, the book is fairly priced at INR MRP 995/-. The paper quality is decent, print quality is lucid, the binding quality is appreciable, the font size & word space is well placed and the thickness and length of the book makes sure that it can be easily carried to court rooms, lecture halls, seminars etc.

Moving to contents of the book, I will reserve myself from going into much detail leaving it to the reader to surprise herself. But I will share few indicators on why this book is a must read and keep for students, practitioners, academicians and readers of law. The book traces origin of the commercial division as a separate vertical of civil disputes, gives detained legislative history on various topics and sub topics, does a comparative analysis of the law in India and in U.K and covers almost all judicial precedents on the subject in past 5 years. The book went into print in December end therefore it carries comments/judgments on the subject till December 2020. The beautiful forewords written by Justice Rohinton Nariman and Justice M. Sundar add cherry on the top and add weight to it.

There are few interesting observations the reader will make while going through the book -names of cases have been highlighted in bold everywhere; instead of running page numbers, the author has chosen to indicate page numbers in a chapter wise fashion eg- 1.1, 2.1 onwards etc., and after every chapter, one page has been intentionally left blank, perhaps to carry notes.

For someone who wishes to learn or research on the subject of Commercial Courts Act, this book is a 'go-to' tool. Francis Bacon wrote that only a few books should be chewed and digested thoroughly. This book is one amongst such books. This book is one of those books which will never see dust. Readers will definitely keep rushing to the book shelf for this and keep opening it!