In a strongly worded order, the Karnataka High Court, on March 24, recommended action against a Bengaluru city civil judge for citing two non-existent Supreme Court judgements in a matter related to a commercial dispute. Justice R Devdas of the High Court (HC) expressed serious concern about the incident and directed it to be intimated to the Chief Justice for appropriate action.
“This act on the part of the [civil court] judge would require further probe and appropriate action in accordance with the law,” Justice Devdas said. He also noted that the senior counsel appearing for the plaintiffs had clarified that the said judgements were not cited by them.
The case pertains to a Civil Revision Petition filed under Section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC), which gives High Courts revisional powers to check orders passed by subordinate courts for irregularities. The petition was filed by Samman Capital Limited and Samman Finserve Limited—both non-banking financial institutions based out of New Delhi—challenging the city civil court’s order in a matter relating to jurisdiction.
According to court submissions, Mantri Infrastructure Pvt Ltd—a Bengaluru-based real estate company—had availed loans from the Samman group by pledging shares. After the firm failed to repay, Samman group issued a notice in September 2024, seeking the transfer of the pledged shares. In response, Mantri Infrastructure filed a commercial suit in the Bengaluru commercial court, seeking a permanent injunction to restrain Samman from proceeding with the transfer. Later, Mantri filed a fresh petition at the city civil court, without the permission of the commercial court.
Samman then filed an Interlocutory Application arguing that the city civil court lacked jurisdiction over the case since it was a commercial dispute, which should be handled by a commercial court. However, the 9th Additional city civil judge rejected this argument, relying on two Supreme Court judgements—‘Jalan Trading Co. Pvt. Ltd. vs. Millenium Telecom Ltd.’ and ‘Kvalrner Cemintation India Ltd. vs. Achil Builders Pvt. Ltd.’ Both these judgements were later found to be non-existent.
Senior counsel Prabhuling Navadgi, representing the Samman group, told the HC that the lower court had rejected their application solely based only on these non-existent judgements. He further highlighted that the cases cited by the city civil court were “fraudulently manufactured” as they were not listed in any official Supreme Court records or legal database.
Navadgi also pointed out that artificial intelligence tools, like ChatGPT, have been known to generate “fictitious case laws” and suggested this might have influenced the civil court judge’s ruling.
Taking serious note of these allegations, the Karnataka HC directed that a copy of this order be placed before the Chief Justice of the HC for further action against the civil court judge. Justice Devdas of the HC also noted that the Mantri group had withdrawn a previous commercial suit without the court’s permission, before filing a new case in a civil court.
“In the considered opinion of this court, the application filed by the defendants to return the plaint should have been allowed for more than one reason. Firstly, the plaintiffs who had earlier filed a commercial suit, did not seek leave of the court while withdrawing the same, to present the suit before the civil court,” the HC observed while allowing the Civil Revision Petition.
The High Court remitted the matter to the 9th Additional City Civil and Sessions Judge, Bengaluru, instructing the plaintiffs to file an application seeking rejection of the suit. The parties have been directed to appear before the on April 2, 2025, without further notice.