The legal system in Karachi has been shaken up by enactment of the Sindh Civil Courts (Amendment) Act, 2025. The legislation strips the High Court at Karachi of its original jurisdiction to hear civil suits valued at Rs65 million or more. Prior to this legislation, the High Court at Karachi enjoyed a unique position as being the only High Court in Pakistan having original jurisdiction to hear civil suits. In other parts of the country a civil suit is instituted before District Courts. The position in Karachi is now the same.
A civil suit is filed under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 and is the ordinary route taken when approaching a Court for enforcement of civil rights. Procedurally, a civil suit may be filed with interlocutory applications seeking that the Court pass temporary orders aimed at preserving the rights of the parties until determination after trial. These applications may be for various orders including injunctions, inspections and receiverships.
Given that orders pursuant to these applications are to be of a temporary nature, the applications are ordinarily determined prior to trial. This means that positions of parties are taken at face value from the pleadings, in absence of cross-examination, and documents relied upon are considered without being subject to the standards of evidence law.
After the interlocutory orders are passed, a trial is undertaken where parties have an opportunity to produce evidence and cross-examine opposing witnesses. The plaintiff has the burden to establish their case through evidence which must meet the evidentiary standards prescribed by law. Opposing parties have opportunities to cross-examine witnesses and produce contra evidence. Based on all the evidence the Court renders a judgment.
In true essence, the focus of a civil suit is meant to be the trial. The interlocutory application stage is simply a preliminary stage aimed only at ensuring rights are preserved during a trial, or orders are passed to ensure the trial is fair.
While both the High Courts and District Courts in Karachi follow the same civil procedure, practically civil suits have been prosecuted in each Court differently. The practice before the High Court at Karachi was to focus on the preliminary application stage rather than trial. Most suits were filed along injunction applications aimed at securing without notice ad-interim injunctions i.e. Court orders restraining a defendant from doing something. Someone trying to back out of a deal? Go to the High Court and get a stay. High Court Judges as opposed to District Court Judges were always more amenable to pass these ad-interim orders; being temporary orders aimed at preserving rights until the injunction application could be decided after hearing all parties.
While in principle this is a correct approach, the problem began when it started taking years to reach those final determinations.
Two main causes for this can be highlighted.
Firstly, abuse of process by litigants. Given the immense workload of the High Court and the restricted number of Judges, some litigants took advantage of faults in the system whereby ad-interim orders would be obtained and thereafter steps taken to delay proceedings. Sometimes this exploitation got so bad that opposing parties were found bound by injunctive orders at the preliminary stage for years without a hearing. This meant that parties benefitting from injunctive orders could coerce opposing parties, without ever having to establish their case on standards prescribed by evidentiary laws.
The second problem was that even where a preliminary injunction application was decided, trial and conclusion of the case remained a far-fetched dream. Rather than evidence being recorded by a Judge (being the ordinary course in the civil procedure), the High Court at Karachi would commission out the process to lawyers. The problem here was that these commissioners lacked authority to compel litigants to record evidence expeditiously. Further recording of evidence was always undertaken in informal settings i.e. consultations rooms of bar associations or offices of the commissioner, resulting in lax attitude of all involved. Moreover, given that the commissioners were lawyers themselves, with a sense of camaraderie, they were often amenable to requests of fellow counsels to adjourn matters.
Since this was a reality, the application stage became the focus of civil suits before the High Court. Once injunction applications were decided either way, it became as good as a final determination.
Problem with this was that it goes contrary to the principles of adjudication after fair trial and enabled parties to circumvent the burdens of evidentiary standards and cross-examination while also obtaining orders which for practical purposes were as good as final decisions.
Due to this the legal market in Karachi, along with how litigants approached disputes had also developed as such that the focus was on the preliminary stage and obtaining a "stay". Reputation of lawyers is premised on their ability to "obtain a stay" and some firms even restricted practices to accepting briefs only for the preliminary injunction application stage. Even businesses conducted themselves in a manner having expectations of being able to obtain a stay when needed and thereafter negotiating disputes without having to face trial.
As opposed to the above, the practice before the District Court has remained quite different i.e. District Courts placing less focus on the preliminary application stage and more focus towards final determination after trial. Furthermore, unlike the High Court, given that the cohort of Judges in the District Courts is far larger, cases are fixed and heard more frequently leaving lesser opportunity for a litigant to delay the same.
Since now the District Courts have become the court of first instance for civil suits, one can expect a revolution in the way the legal market works with lawyers and litigants in Karachi having to change their outlook towards suits and focus strategy on results in final determinations rather than the stage of interim injunctive relief. Instead of structuring suits with aim to simply demonstrate a prima facie case, obtain a stay and force settlement, litigants and counsel will have to be mindful of how to frame their cases for trial. Litigants will also have to become more ready to enter the witness box, face cross-examination and produce evidence which meets the evidentiary standards as prescribed.
Whether or not this amendment is better for the system can be debated both ways. However, regardless of its merits, how this change affects legal practices in Karachi in the coming years will be interesting to see.
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