This page is written for the person holding a summons, not for lawyers. Tis Hazari is not a courtroom; it is a campus that opened in 1958 and has more than one district court inside it. Almost everything that goes wrong on a first visit goes wrong before anybody has said a word about the dispute — the wrong block, the wrong floor, the wrong expectation about when a matter is called, and the belief that a first date is where a case is decided. None of that is difficult. It is just never explained.
The first correction is a small one and it saves an entire morning. People say “my case is in Tis Hazari” in the tone of somebody naming a room. Tis Hazari is a campus. It opened in 1958, it is the oldest of Delhi’s district court complexes and among the largest, and more than one district court sits inside it. Between them they occupy several blocks, and those blocks have multiple floors, separate entrances and their own lifts and stairwells. Walking from one end to the other with a heavy file is not a two-minute matter.
That is why the instruction people are usually given — “go to Tis Hazari at ten” — is not an instruction at all. It tells you the city and the morning. It does not tell you the building, the floor or the room, and those are the three things you actually need. Everything in the next few sections exists to convert that vague instruction into a specific one.
There is a second reason the distinction matters. Because the complex is large and old, different kinds of work happen in different parts of it: the courts themselves, the filing counters, the copying agency, the legal services desk, the bar rooms, the oath commissioners. Somebody who thinks of the place as one room will go to a court clerk with a question that belongs at a counter three buildings away, and will be sent walking. Somebody who understands it as a campus asks the right question in the right place the first time.
Your address for the day is not “Tis Hazari”. It is a court number, and that number is printed against your case on the day’s cause list. Find the number first; find the building afterwards.
Delhi’s district judiciary is organised by revenue district, and each district court complex serves particular districts. Tis Hazari serves more than one. Which district your matter falls in depends on the nature of the case — where the cause of action arose, where the property is, which police station registered the case, where the parties reside — and the allocation of districts to complexes is fixed by notification and has been rearranged more than once as new complexes opened.
We are deliberately not printing a district-to-complex table here, and it is worth saying why. A table like that looks authoritative, is copied from site to site, and goes quietly out of date. Somebody then reads it, travels to the wrong complex, and loses a day and sometimes a date. The thing that is always current is your own paper.
A district court is where the ordinary civil and criminal life of a city is dealt with. Without tying any of these to a particular room, the work you will see going on around you includes civil suits — recovery of money, declarations, injunctions, specific performance; rent and eviction matters; criminal trials and applications before magistrates and sessions courts, including bail; complaints about dishonoured cheques; matrimonial and maintenance proceedings; guardianship and succession matters; claims arising out of motor accidents; and appeals from some of these to the district judge.
Two practical consequences follow from that breadth. The first is that the corridor you are standing in contains people whose matters have nothing to do with yours, so overheard advice is worthless and often alarming. The second is that “the divorce court” and “the cheque court” are not things — several courts in the same complex hear the same subject, which is exactly why navigation is by number rather than by subject.
It is as useful to know what is elsewhere. The Delhi High Court is a separate institution with its own building and its own procedure; writ petitions, many appeals and matters that must begin there are not heard in a district complex. Consumer complaints go to the consumer commissions. Service matters for government employees go to the administrative tribunal. Company and insolvency matters go to the National Company Law Tribunal. Tax appeals go to the tax tribunals. Debt recovery by banks goes to the Debts Recovery Tribunal. Labour disputes go to the labour courts and industrial tribunals.
Registration of a document, on the other hand, is not a court function at all — it happens before the Sub-Registrar — and neither is getting an affidavit attested, which is done before an oath commissioner or notary. A surprising number of people come to a court complex to do something that was never a court’s job.
If your paper names a tribunal, a commission or the High Court, stop reading this page and go by the paper. Arriving at the right campus on the right day for the wrong forum is still a wasted day, and it is a common one.
Every matter has a number: a case type, a serial number and a year, and behind it a unique identification in the national case system. That string is the only thing in this process that identifies your matter without ambiguity. Names do not — there are many people with your name and sometimes several with your name in the same complex. Subjects do not. Dates do not.
So the first piece of preparation, done at home and not at the gate, is to write the case number on the outside of your file and save it in your phone. Everything else on the day — the cause list, the counter, the copying application, the status enquiry — runs off that number. People who know their case number are dealt with in a minute. People who do not are asked to step aside while somebody searches by name.
Photograph the first page of your summons and the first page of your last order. Two photographs in your phone have saved more court mornings than any amount of legal reading.
A cause list is the day’s agenda for each court: the matters listed before that court, in the order they will be taken, with the parties and the purpose. It is published for the following working day and is available on the official district courts system and on display at the complex. Reading it the previous evening is the single highest-value ten minutes in this entire page.
What you are looking for is three things: that your case is actually listed (matters do get deleted and transferred), the court number, and your serial number in that court’s list. The serial number is a rough indication of how long you will wait — not a promise, because matters ahead of you take unequal time and some are passed over, but a far better guide than the time printed on a summons.
The purpose column is worth reading too. It usually names the stage — appearance, service, reply, arguments, evidence, orders. Knowing the stage tells you what the day is for, and therefore what you should have with you and whether your personal presence is likely to be needed.
With a court number in hand, navigation becomes mechanical. Each block has a display of which court numbers sit on which floor, and the courts themselves are marked. The mistake to avoid is asking a general question — “where is the family matter?” — because the honest answer is that nobody can tell from that. Ask a specific one: “which block is court number such and such in?” Anybody working in the complex can answer that in a second.
Allow for the walk. A large old campus with several blocks is not navigated at the speed of a map. Lifts are crowded in the mornings; stairs are often faster. If you have a mobility difficulty, plan the specific block in advance rather than discovering the distance on the day.
The complex has its own Metro station on the Red Line, and for most people arriving that way is the difference between a calm morning and a frantic one. The roads around any district court in Delhi are congested on working mornings, parking fills very early, and a car that has to be left far away adds a walk you did not plan and cannot shorten.
If you must drive, treat whatever your map application says and add a generous margin. And set off on the assumption that you will need time at the entry gate: security checks are real, bags are opened, and a queue at the gate does not care that your matter is listed first.
Entry is through a security check. Carry a government photo identity document and expect it to be asked for. Expect the ordinary restrictions on anything that could be treated as a weapon, and expect restrictions on photography inside court premises. Do not attempt to record proceedings on a phone; it is not a grey area and it will not end well.
Travel light. A single file, an identity document, water and a pen get you through faster than a backpack. If you are carrying originals, carry them flat in a folder rather than folded in a pocket, because a document produced creased and damp makes an impression you do not want to make.
This is the section people most need and least often get. A court has working hours published by the district judiciary and a break in the middle of the day. Within those hours, matters are taken in the order of the list, not by appointment. A single court may have a long list for one day. Some matters take ninety seconds — an appearance recorded, a date given. Some take an hour.
The result is that there is no reliable way to predict the clock time at which your matter will be called. What there is, is a reliable way to be there when it is: sit in the courtroom, keep your file on your lap, and stay. People who step out for a phone call at the wrong moment come back to find the matter has been called and passed over, or worse.
Matters are called out, usually by number and party names, by the court staff. When yours is called, your advocate goes forward; if you are appearing in person, you go forward. If neither happens, the matter may be passed over to be taken again later, or an order may be made in your absence, depending on the stage and the circumstances. Nothing about this is theatrical. It is quick, procedural and quiet, and first-time visitors regularly fail to notice it happening.
Listen for both your case number and the names, because either may be used. If you are unsure, ask the court staff quietly before the list starts whether your matter is in that court — a short, specific question asked at the right time is welcomed far more often than people expect.
“Pass over” means the matter is being left and will be taken again later in the same day, commonly because a lawyer is in another court or somebody is not present yet. It is not a setback. Do not leave the building when a matter is passed over.
An adjournment is different: the matter is put to another day. The ordinary reasons are procedural — the other side has not been served, a reply is not on record, a document is missing, the presiding officer is unavailable, the list is too long, or a party has sought time. Clients experience adjournments as failure and often as somebody’s fault. Most of the time it is neither. What is genuinely worth caring about is whether the reason is on your side of the file: an adjournment because your document is missing is a problem you can fix, and should.
What is the next date, and what has to be filed or done before it? Write both down yourself, in your own notebook, in your own handwriting. Do not rely on being told again later.
Take the file, not the story. A court works on documents, and a well-ordered file is worth more than a well-told account.
Arrange papers in date order rather than in order of importance. Importance is an opinion and it changes; chronology does not. If your documents are in a language other than the one the court works in, a translation prepared in advance saves an adjournment — our legal translation desk does that, and it is much cheaper than a wasted date.
Dress plainly and neatly; nobody expects formality from a litigant, but a court is not a queue at a counter. Silence your phone before you enter, and do not take it out inside. Stand when the court rises. Do not interrupt, and do not speak unless you are addressed — if you are represented, speaking out of turn can actively harm your matter.
If you are appearing in person and are addressed, answer briefly and only what was asked. The most common failure of a litigant in person is not ignorance of law; it is the instinct to explain everything at once when a single fact was wanted.
Papers do not reach a court because they exist. They reach it because they are filed, with the right number of copies, the correct court fee where one is payable, and the required annexures, and because an acknowledgement is taken. A document handed to the wrong person is not on the record, and the fact that you handed it to somebody is not a defence later.
Three habits prevent most filing trouble. Keep one complete copy of exactly what you filed, page for page. Take an acknowledgement with a date, whatever form it comes in, and photograph it. And ask, at the counter, whether anything else is needed for that particular filing — the answer frequently is, and the counter will tell you if you ask before you walk away rather than after.
Where the papers themselves are the work, that is what we do: applications, petitions, affidavits and the annexure sets — typed, formatted, stamped and put in order to your advocate’s instructions.
Electronic filing exists in the district judiciary and more of the system runs through it every year. Where it is available it saves a journey, gives you a timestamped record and makes the status of a filing visible. What it does not do is change the underlying requirements — a defective petition is defective whether it arrives on paper or as a file, and objections are raised the same way.
Two practical notes. Scan properly: a crooked, half-legible scan of a crucial annexure creates an objection that costs more time than scanning again would have. And keep the acknowledgement or receipt the system generates, in the same place you keep your paper acknowledgements. A filing you cannot evidence is, in practice, a filing you did not make.
You do not need anybody’s permission to know where your own case stands. The official eCourts services for the Delhi district courts allow a search by case number, by party name, by advocate and by filing number, and the same system carries the daily cause lists. Learning to use it takes one sitting and removes a permanent dependence.
Use the official route. There are many sites that republish case information with advertising around it; some are stale, and a stale next date is precisely the kind of error that causes somebody to miss a hearing. If two sources disagree, believe the official one and, if it matters, confirm at the counter.
Matters get adjourned in your absence, transferred, or taken up early. A thirty-second check the evening before is the cheapest insurance in this entire process.
At some point somebody — a bank, an employer, a registrar, an insurer, another court — will ask for the order, and will not accept the photograph on your phone. What they want is a certified copy: a copy issued by the court’s own copying agency, carrying the marks that make it an official document. Applying is a counter process inside the complex, on the prescribed form, with the case particulars and the charge payable there.
Two things save a second trip. Be precise about what you want, because an order, a judgment, a decree and a copy of the whole record are separate requests. And apply earlier than you need it: copies are not issued across the counter instantly, and the day somebody asks you for one is never the day you have time to spare. Where the matter is one we are handling, our certified true copy desk does the applying and the collecting.
The instinct when a court paper arrives is either to panic or to put it away. Both are expensive. A summons is not a finding against you; it is a direction to appear, and the consequences of treating it as junk mail are much worse than the consequences of the case itself in most matters.
If what you have is a legal notice rather than a court summons, the position is different — nothing has been filed yet and a proper reply can often end the matter. We draft legal notices and replies to them, and when a matter is plainly on its way to a courtroom anyway, we tell you that instead of billing you for a letter that will not end it.
Very little, and that is normal. The first date is generally about the file rather than the dispute. Appearance is recorded. Service on the other side is checked, and if service has not been effected, fresh steps are directed. A written statement or reply is called for. A date is given. Nobody argues the merits and nobody gives evidence.
People come home from that morning convinced it was pointless, and sometimes convinced their advocate did nothing. Neither is true. The first date is when the matter becomes a live case on the court’s record with a schedule attached to it. Knowing this beforehand removes more distress than any other single fact on this page.
The stages that follow, in a broad civil matter, run roughly in this order: completion of pleadings, admission and denial of documents, framing of the issues that the court will actually decide, evidence, arguments, judgment. In a criminal matter the shape is different again. The point is not to memorise the sequence but to understand that a case is a series of stages, each with its own date, and that the calendar is the thing to manage.
This is the document by which you appoint an advocate to act for you in a particular case, and it goes on the court record. Sign it once, deliberately, after you have understood what is covered. Once it is filed, the appointment continues until it is determined with the leave of the court, which is why changing advocate mid-case is a step taken on the record rather than a matter of quietly going somewhere else.
Settle four things before you sign: what work the engagement covers and what is extra; how expenses that are not fees — court fee, copying charges, travel — are accounted for; what happens if the matter settles early; and who you speak to when your advocate is in another court. Our page on the first meeting with a lawyer goes through the conversation in full, and how advocate fees work in India explains the structures without quoting anybody’s figure.
A party may appear in person. That is a real right and it is exercised every day. Whether it is wise in your matter is a different question, and it turns on three things rather than on courage: whether there is a deadline fixed by law, whether evidence has to be led, and whether the other side is represented. If any of those is true, the asymmetry is large.
What is not available is sending somebody else. A relative, a friend or an employee cannot ordinarily appear and argue for you, and a power of attorney does not convert somebody into your pleader. A court can permit a person who is not an enrolled advocate to appear in a particular case, but that is a discretion, exercised case by case, and it is not something to plan around. Our page on whether you need a lawyer works through this properly, including the honest cases where the answer is that you do not.
Before you spend anything, find out whether the State will represent you for nothing. Under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987, free legal services are available to several categories of person — and a woman or a child qualifies whatever she earns, with an income limit fixed by the State for other categories. Delhi’s complexes carry a legal services presence on site, with front offices and helpdesks in the buildings themselves.
Dial 1516 within Delhi, or 15100 from anywhere in the country. Panel advocates are enrolled like any other, and in a good many districts they have been doing this work for years. If you qualify, use it. We would rather tell you that and lose the work than take money from somebody entitled to have it done for nothing.
A Lok Adalat is a forum where matters are settled by agreement rather than decided by judgment. Sittings are held periodically, including national ones, and a very large number of money matters, cheque matters, motor accident claims and bank recovery matters are disposed of that way.
Two features make it worth thinking about seriously. An award made by a Lok Adalat has the force of a decree, so it is not an informal understanding. And where a case is settled there, the court fee already paid is refundable. Against that, a settlement is final between the parties in the ordinary course, so the figure has to be one you can live with. Never agree to a number in a corridor under time pressure; ask for the sitting to be stood over rather than deciding in ninety seconds.
Mediation is different from a Lok Adalat. A trained mediator helps the parties find their own settlement, over one or more sessions, away from the courtroom. It is confidential, what is said there is not evidence, and either side may stop. Delhi’s district court complexes have mediation centres, and matrimonial, family, commercial and cheque matters are referred to them constantly.
Litigants often treat a referral to mediation as a delay tactic. It is usually the opposite: it is the one stage of the process where you control the outcome instead of receiving it. A settlement you shaped is enforceable, quicker and, in family matters, very often the only outcome that leaves anybody able to speak to anybody afterwards.
It depends on the nature of the matter and on what the court has directed. In some proceedings personal appearance is required and an exemption has to be sought on an application; in others the advocate’s appearance is enough and the client attending every date achieves nothing but lost wages. The mistake is assuming either way.
Make it a habit: at the end of every date, ask whether your presence is required next time, and note the answer. And if you cannot attend a date on which you are required, say so in advance through your advocate rather than simply not arriving. Absence explained in advance and absence discovered afterwards are treated very differently.
Do not let it sit. The consequences of an absence vary with the side you are on and the stage the matter has reached, and they range from a costs order to the matter proceeding without you. Almost all of them are easier to deal with in the same week than in the same year.
The sequence is simple: check the case status yourself to find out what actually happened and what the next date is; get the order if one was passed; and take advice on the application that has to be made. What you must not do is decide from a distance that the case is over. People abandon matters that were recoverable, and discover the consequences years later when something has to be sold, mortgaged or inherited.
A large share of the people at any court complex are not parties at all. They are witnesses, and almost nobody explains the position to them. A witness summons is a direction to attend and to give evidence, and it may also direct you to bring specified documents with you. Attendance is not optional, and the consequences of ignoring a witness summons are real.
What the day involves is usually waiting followed by a short time in the box. You will be asked to take an oath or affirm, you will be examined by the side that called you, and you may then be cross-examined by the other side. That is not an accusation; cross-examination is the ordinary mechanism by which evidence is tested, and being questioned closely does not mean anybody thinks you are lying.
If the date is genuinely impossible for you — you are out of the country, you are in hospital — that is dealt with by an application in advance, not by not turning up. Say so to the party who summoned you as early as you can, so the application can be made rather than explained afterwards.
Around every court in India there are people who offer to get things done. Some are honest clerks. Some are not, and the ones who are not share a set of habits worth recognising: they approach you rather than being approached, they talk about influence rather than about procedure, they quote a figure for an outcome, and they are vague about who exactly will do the work.
The protections are dull and they work. Engage only an advocate enrolled with a State Bar Council, and ask for the enrolment number; you are entitled to it and an honest professional gives it without hesitation. Never hand over original documents to somebody you cannot identify. Never pay cash for a promised result — no honest professional can promise a result. And if anybody tells you a particular court can be managed, walk away; that sentence is the whole warning.
Nobody can honestly promise what a court will do. An advocate can tell you what is arguable, what is likely and what is not, and a good one will tell you when your case is weak. Certainty for a price is the one thing the legal system does not sell.
Both are extremely common and neither should be difficult. There are legal services desks and help desks inside the complexes, and there are facilities for women and for senior citizens. If you are uncomfortable, take somebody with you — a person who cannot argue for you can still sit with you, and that is allowed and normal.
In matrimonial and domestic matters, ask your advocate in advance about waiting arrangements and about whether you and the other party will be required to be in the same room; there are established ways of managing that and they are asked for routinely. Being told what to expect in advance is most of what makes a difficult morning manageable.
Court premises are required to provide access, and there are lifts and ramps. What a large, old, multi-block campus cannot remove is distance. If mobility is a difficulty, find out the specific block and floor in advance rather than on the day, arrive before the list begins rather than with it, and ask for whatever accommodation the court can provide. It is asked for regularly and it is not an imposition.
The single habit that separates people who find litigation manageable from people who find it bewildering is keeping their own file. Not the advocate’s file — your own.
A case that runs for years will outlast phones, laptops and memory. Keep the paper file and a scanned copy of it in two places. The day you need it — to change advocate, to answer an allegation, to prove you filed on time — will not be a day you can reconstruct it.
| Mistake | What it actually costs |
|---|---|
| Treating “Tis Hazari” as an address | A morning spent in the wrong block, and sometimes a matter called in your absence |
| Not checking the cause list the night before | Travelling for a matter that was deleted, transferred or already adjourned |
| Expecting the hearing at the time on the summons | Leaving before the matter is called |
| Sending a relative with a power of attorney | Nobody competent appears; the case proceeds anyway |
| Ignoring a summons because the claim seems baseless | Orders made in your absence, which then have to be set aside |
| Filing without keeping a copy and an acknowledgement | No way to prove what went in or when |
| Engaging somebody met outside the gate | Money gone, originals gone, no accountable professional |
| Agreeing a settlement figure in a corridor | A binding award on a number decided in ninety seconds |
| Not asking whether attendance is required next time | Either lost wages every date, or an absence that mattered |
| Relying on an unofficial site for the next date | A missed hearing caused by stale data |
Whatever the matter, a handful of documents are asked for so often that having them ready is worth the hour. An affidavit on the right stamp, sworn before an oath commissioner — which is what our notary affidavit desk arranges. e-stamp paper in the correct denomination, because the wrong denomination is an objection and a fresh date. A power of attorney, drawn for what it can actually do rather than for what people assume it does. Certified copies of earlier orders. And translations where a document is not in the language of the court.
Two small rules prevent most document trouble. Keep the names spelled identically across every paper — a difference between an identity document and a deed produces a query at exactly the wrong moment, and the instrument that resolves it is a one and same person affidavit. And never hand over your only original to anybody, for any reason, however routine it sounds.
Legal Space Services is a documentation and filing company. This is not a law firm, and nobody here stands up before a judge. Our half of the job is the half that eats hours without needing advocacy: drafting and typing the application, petition or affidavit to your advocate’s instructions; formatting and paginating the annexures; e-stamping; arranging the oath; making the sets; lodging the filing and bringing back the acknowledgement; applying for certified copies; and translations.
Where a matter has to be argued, it is argued by an advocate. Court work is for your advocate, whose fee is engaged and paid by you directly; we do not quote, collect or share it. Where nobody is engaged yet, the directory costs nothing to open, nothing to write through, and carries nobody who has paid us a rupee — there is no listing fee, no subscription and no commission in either direction.
Our charge depends on which document it is, and each one is printed on its own service page, in the open, with no enquiry form standing in front of it. Government charges are separate: court fee, stamp duty, copying charges and the like are what the authority itself levies, and we tell you what they are instead of folding them into our number.
We tell you the total before we start, and nothing is payable in advance. If your matter turns out to need an advocate rather than a document, we will say so on the call and point you at the directory, and there is no charge for that conversation. If it turns out you qualify for free legal aid, we will tell you that too.
Send photographs of the papers on WhatsApp if that is easier than describing them; photographs of documents are fine and we will come back to you with what is actually needed rather than with a quotation for everything.
Listed alphabetically. We do not rank, rate or feature advocates, and nobody pays for a position here — the reason is on our Find an Advocate page. Neither reading a profile nor writing to somebody through it costs anything.
Send a photograph of the summons or the last order. We will tell you which forum it belongs to, what has to be filed before the date, and whether the part you need is a document or an advocate. If it is an advocate, the directory is free and we take no commission.
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