Karnataka High Court upholds amendments made to laws for reducing pendency of civil appeals before High Court

Published 9 July 2026 · local

The High Court (HC) of Karnataka has upheld amendments made in 2024 to laws relating to the civil justice system, under which many first appeals

The High Court (HC) of Karnataka has upheld amendments made in 2024 to laws relating to the civil justice system, under which many first appeals against the orders passed by the senior civil judges, which were earlier heard by the HC directly, will now be heard by the district courts. A Division Bench headed by Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice C.M. Poonacha, in its July 8 verdict upheld the legality of the Karnataka High Court (Amendment) Act, 2023 and the Karnataka Civil Courts (Amendment) Act, 2023, which were notified in June 2024. With this order, now the stage is clear for transferring hundreds of Regular First Appeals (RFAs), arising from the orders passed by the senior civil judges in various taluks and districts, pending for adjudication in HC’s three Benches in Bengaluru, Dharwad, and Kalaburagi, to the respective district courts.

However, as per the amendment, the RFAs lie to the HC’s Principal Bench in Bengaluru from the orders passed by the city civil court in Bengaluru. Though the amendment over jurisdiction of HC over appeals were given with retrospective effect from August 28, 2007, the Division Bench read down Section 4 of the Karnataka Civil Courts Act stating that amendment would not apply to the RFAs already concluded before the HC as well as the orders passed in the RFAs pending proceedings before the HC as the amendment were given retrospective effect from August 28, 2007. The Division Bench rejected various contentions of the litigants, Narayanamma and others, including that they had a right to have their pending appeals be heard by the HC as law was amended after their cases had already reached the HC.

Apart from upholding legal validity of the amendments, the Division Bench also noted that the decision to bring these amendments followed a 2023 judgment in which the HC had highlighted the large number of pending RFAs appeals, over 19,000, before it. The HC’s 2023 judgement suggested that first appeals of certain categories could be heard by the district court instead of the HC as nearly 200 courts would be available at district level to hear first

appeals on orders passed by senior civil judges. “If the concept of justice to doorstep is to be realised in its letter and spirit, it is high time to amend the provisions of the law relating to the jurisdiction of the High Court and the district court to hear the first appeals,” the HC had observed in its 2023 judgement while deciding a 28-year-old suit, which was pending in the HC for the past 16 years.