Summary Procedure

In one line

A summary suit is one in which the defendant cannot defend as of right: he must first obtain the leave of the Court to defend, and if he does not get it, the plaintiff is entitled to judgment at once.

Why the Code reverses the usual position

Most defences to a claim on a cheque or a written contract are not defences at all. The money is owed, the document says so, and the defence exists only to buy two or three years. Ordinary procedure rewards that: the defendant files a written statement, issues are framed, and the case joins the queue.

Order XXXVII removes the reward. In the classes of case where the claim is on a document or a fixed sum, and where a genuine defence is therefore uncommon, the burden is reversed. The defendant must come forward and show he has something worth trying. If he has, he gets leave and the suit proceeds normally. If he has not, the plaintiff gets his decree in weeks.

Notice that this is a procedural shortcut, not a lower standard of proof. A defendant with a real defence loses nothing except the ability to delay.

Which courts, and which suits: Rule 1

Rule 1(1): the Order applies to (a) High Courts, City Civil Courts and Courts of Small Causes; and (b) other Courts. The proviso allows a High Court, by notification in the Official Gazette, to restrict the operation of the Order in the courts in clause (b) to such categories of suits as it thinks proper, and to restrict, enlarge or vary those categories later.

Rule 1(2): subject to sub-rule (1), the Order applies to the following classes of suits:

(a) suits upon bills of exchange, hundies and promissory notes (b) suits in which the plaintiff seeks only to recover a debt or liquidated demand in money payable by the defendant, with or without interest, arising (i) on a written contract, or (ii) on an enactment, where the sum sought is a fixed sum of money or in the nature of a debt other than a penalty, or (iii) on a guarantee, where the claim against the principal is in respect of a debt or liquidated demand only (iv) a suit for recovery of receivables instituted by any assignee of a receivable

The common thread is worth stating in an answer: every one of these is a claim for a definite sum resting on a document or a statute. Nothing that requires damages to be assessed can come here.

How a summary suit is instituted: Rule 2

Rule 2(1): a suit to which the Order applies may, if the plaintiff desires to proceed under it, be instituted by presenting a plaint which shall contain: