One Wednesday last month, 37-year-old Sonali Chaudhary, a resident of Janakpuri, stood outside the courtroom of the Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) in the Dwarka courts complex, waiting for a hearing in a case relating to a dishonoured cheque issued to her.
Chaudhary, who works for a multinational company in Gurgaon, had loaned a friend Rs 4 lakh. The friend wrote a repayment cheque, which bounced because there wasn’t enough money in the payer’s account.
Chaudhary began legal proceedings, which remain ongoing. “It’s been more than two years, and I get dates in court roughly every three months,” she said.
That same week, 35-year-old Sahil Wadhwa was at the North Delhi District Court in the Rohini courts complex, also in connection with a bounced-cheque case. Unlike Chaudhary, Wadhwa, who works for an online insurance aggregator, is the accused, and his matter goes back to the time of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I had taken a loan from a private bank in 2019, and had issued security cheques to them. During the pandemic, I could not make timely repayments, and the bank began a case against me,” Wadhwa said.
The JMFC court suggested that Wadhwa should try to come to a settlement with the bank, and it was agreed that he would repay Rs 9.5 lakh in five installments. He’s looking forward to the day when he is able to close the matter, Wadhwa said – he had no intention to not repay, and the process has been exhausting.
Most common crime, the biggest backlog
Cases relating to dishonoured or bounced cheques are prosecuted under The Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 (NI Act) – mainly Section 138 (‘Dishonour of cheque for insufficiency, etc., of funds in the account’) of the law. A bounce amounts to a breach of financial trust and obligation, and is a criminal offence.
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Cheque-bouncing is also the most common crime before the lower courts in the capital – of the approximately 15.8 lakh cases that were pending before these courts at the end of November, 5.5 lakh, or almost 35%, were cheque-bounce cases.
This case load has been increasing rapidly – less than a year previously, at the end of 2024, pendency had been 4.5 lakh.
In each of the 51 special courts spread across 11 judicial districts, which hear cheque-bounce cases, the average pendency ranges from 10,000 cases to 18,000 cases. This is much more than the average pendency of a little more than 2,000 cases across all Magistrate and District and Sessions courts in the capital.
Cause lists at courtrooms where NI Act cases are heard typically run into three pages, and the number of entries for a single day and judge can at times exceed 200. The cause list displayed outside the courtroom where Chaudhary’s matter came up for hearing last month had 180 entries. Most hearings last for a few minutes before the matter is adjourned.
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Once a hearing is adjourned, the case could come up again after several months – and in some cases, even after a year or more. This is despite the fact that the NI Act prescribes that trials “shall be conducted as expeditiously as possible and an endeavour shall be made to conclude the trial within six months from the date of filing of the complaint”.
Digital courts experiment that did not work
To deal with this huge pendency, the Delhi High Court, which has administrative and supervisory jurisdiction over Magistrate and District and Sessions courts in the capital, decided to set up special courts that would exclusively hear cases under the NI Act.
On June 6, 2025, High Court Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya inaugurated 34 ‘digital’ courts especially for NI Act cases. The judges would sit in designated courtrooms on the seventh floor of the Rouse Avenue complex, while the court staff would continue to operate from the respective district courts. The parties would appear before the judge by video link, and evidence and arguments would be presented virtually.
In its May 30 notification, the HC cited “inadequate space” and the need for “optimal utilisation of available infrastructure and resources” as the reasons for setting up the digital courts. Of the 34 courts, nine were from the Dwarka district court, and 7, 6, 5, 4, and 3 were from the district courts in Tis Hazari, Saket, Karkardooma, Rohini, and Patiala House respectively.
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“…These Courts shall continue to be under the administrative control/ supervision/ jurisdiction of the concerned districts to which these courts belong. The readers, ahlmads (court officials), and judicial records of these Digital NI Act Courts would also continue to function from their original districts…,” the circular said.
The creation of the digital courts immediately ran into opposition. Lawyers went on strike to register their “strong grievance/ resentment” against the shifting of the courts to the Rouse Avenue complex.
They claimed that the move was unnecessary, impacted their livelihoods, and that working digitally presented problems that made the task of both litigants and litigators more difficult.
On November 18, the High Court walked back its decision, and both the judges and the cheque-bounce cases they were hearing were moved back to the physical courts.
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For protesting lawyers and court staff, this was vindication. “In an already overburdened legal system, introducing digital courts without stakeholder consultation and adequate infrastructure and training for staff, was bound to fail. Litigants and advocates both struggled to file pleadings and give evidence digitally,” advocate Paras Jain, who practises mainly in Rohini court, told The Indian Express. “Even court staff”, Jain said, “had no idea as to how digital courts would function”.
Advocate Amit Rohilla who argues cheque-bounce cases in the Rohini and Dwarka courts, said the HC’s idea was “conceptually progressive” but its “implementation was poor”.
“The issue was not the idea itself, but poor planning, lack of preparation, and an unready system,” Rohilla said. “Digital courts need reliable Internet, working video systems, a proper system of online filing, and trained staff, which were missing in many places.”
Also, Rohilla said, “Cheque-bounce cases require the presentation of detailed evidence and original documents, questioning of witnesses, and talks on settlement. A fully digital system struggled to handle all this adequately.”
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Advocate Dhir Singh Kasana, former Secretary of the Saket court Bar association who led the protest in Saket, argued that space was not a constraint in the district courts.
“We have sufficient courtrooms in all districts… Technology can be used to improve them; shifting them out all together was unnecessary. Presenting evidence on VC (video conference) is impossible…,” he said.
The way forward: reforms in processes
After the digital courts experiment was aborted, 22 of the 34 Rouse Avenue judges were made ‘relieving’ judges, which means they would essentially only stand in for judges who were on leave.
The digital NI Act courtrooms – set up at a cost of Rs 8.18 crore, according to information provided under the Right to Information Act, 2005 – are empty, and the corridors leading to them are stacked with cardboard boxes and thermocol, sitting from floor to ceiling next to potted plants.
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These courtrooms are relatively small – they were meant to accommodate essentially one judge – which makes them less useful for hearing other matters now.
The redistribution of cases has on the other hand increased the load on the physical courts in the districts. In Patiala House, 20,000 cases that would have been heard digitally have been distributed among 13 physical courts, each of which will now hear more than 1,500 additional cases.
Court staff also complained about logistics issues in dealing with digital files in physical courts. “Physical files are not used in digital courts, and there is a lack of digital infrastructure in physical courts,” said an ahlmad. “There are difficulties in hearing a case in a physical court in the absence of physical files,” he said.
What then is the way forward?
In early December, former Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud said it was feasible to use artificial intelligence (AI) with some human oversight to resolve large numbers of cheque-bounce cases. Lawyers who deal with these matters said some relatively easy procedural steps could ease the burden.
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REDUCING ORAL SUBMISSIONS, ADJOURNMENTS: Advocate Jain said refusing adjournments and accepting submissions on affidavit would significantly speed up processes.
“Pendency can be reduced if courts initiate a no-adjournment rule and take evidence of accused persons and witnesses on affidavits instead of oral testimony. Oral testimonies take long, and each case is currently heard for only a few minutes,” he said.
MEDIATION BEFORE LITIGATION: Advocate Rohilla said that the solution to reducing pendency lay not in setting up digital courts but in encouraging pre-litigation mediation.
“Pendency in cheque-bounce courts can be reduced only through practical, ground-level reforms, not symbolic digitalisation. The most effective solution lies in early and meaningful settlements by strengthening pre-litigation mediation,” he said.
According to Rohilla, a “hybrid system of e-filing and e-summons with physical hearings for evidence and settlement”, can improve efficiency without affecting fairness.
“Simultaneously, strict control over adjournments, speedy serving of summons, affidavit-based evidence, and increased judicial capacity are essential. Since cheque-bounce cases ultimately end up in payment rather than punishment, settlement remains the most realistic and effective tool to reduce pendency,” he said.
INCREASED BENCH CAPACITY: The system also needs more judges and a special tribunal to hear these cases, suggested advocate Pravesh Dabas, who said he has argued more than 300 cheque-bounce cases, mainly in Dwarka court.
“Cases remain unresolved for extended periods due to reasons including inadequate infrastructure, insufficient judicial strength, or procedural delays. When the number of judges is inadequate compared to the volume of cases, courts become overburdened, leading to excessive pendency and long delays,” Dabas said.
“Reforms such as setting up special tribunals for cheque-bounce cases, encouraging mediation, prescribing a maximum period for disposing of cases, training of lawyers, and promoting digital transactions can enhance efficiency and reduce pendency. Courts should actively encourage early settlement/ mediation, especially at the pre-summons or first-hearing stage,” he said.
Dabas too agreed that frequent and unnecessary adjournments are a major problem. “Courts should impose realistic costs for avoidable adjournments,” he said.