The Bill proposes that commercial cases with a value of more than 50 million rupees will be transferred from the District Court to the jurisdiction of the new commercial division of the High Court. The new division will have a fast track procedure that will ensure judgments are made within 30 days of the conclusion of arguments. Moreover, such disputes would have a direct route of appeal from the new division straight to the Supreme Court.

The new commercial division will have jurisdiction to decide applications under sections 34 (application for setting aside arbitral award) and 37 (appealable orders) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996 and will be able to hear enforcement proceedings under section 36 (enforcement). The new division would act as an interface between the Act and the courts and will be an important step for arbitration in India, resulting in a more expedient resolution of arbitration applications.

The report suggests that the Bill could result in an overload of cases in the High Court, which would prevent the intended purpose of enacting the Bill. The Committee has noted that the Bill does not encourage recruitment of High Court judges, which could go a long way towards easing such a burden on the courts.

The Bill has received strong opposition from a Committee member who has suggested that, if enacted, the new commercial division would be a violation of Article 14 of the Indian Constitution. Article 14 grants equality of status to access to the law for all citizens. The relevant member argues that placing higher value claims in a special division commercial court would neglect "ordinary litigation touching the fundamental rights of labourers, peasants and other under privileged groups". No doubt the business community is likely to react favourably to this latest development.