Karnataka High Court Upholds the Civil Courts and High Court Amendment Acts Reshaping the State's Civil Appellate Jurisdiction

The Karnataka High Court's decision in Narayanamma v. State of Karnataka (WP No.17588/2024 c/w WA No.200260/2025, decided on 8^th July 2026) is a significant pronouncement on the State's civil appellate structure. Upholding the Karnataka Civil Courts (Amendment) Act, 2023 and the Karnataka High Court (Amendment) Act, 2023,^[1] the Division Bench reaffirmed that while the right to appeal is a substantive right, the forum before which that appeal is heard is procedural and may be altered by legislation. More importantly, by reading down the retrospective operation of Section 4 of the Civil Courts Amendment Act, the Court preserved the legislative objective of restructuring appellate jurisdiction without unsettling thousands of concluded proceedings. The judgment also raises a deeper institutional question. When the Legislature leaves a gap of this magnitude, how far may a court go in supplying what the statute does not say, and where does interpretation end and legislation begin?

The Amendments at a glance

The amendments introduced by the Karnataka Civil Courts (Amendment) Act, 2023 and Karnataka High Court (Amendment) Act, 2023 are summarised below.

KARNATAKA CIVIL COURTS ACT, 1964
PROVISION	POSITION PRIOR TO AMENDMENT	POSITION AFTER THE 2023 AMENDMENT
Section 17	Civil Judges exercised original jurisdiction in suits up to Rs.5 lakh	Pecuniary jurisdiction enhanced to Rs. 15 lakhs
Section 19	Appeals from Senior Civil Judges lay to the District Court where the subject matter did not exceed Rs. 10 lakhs and to the High Court in all other cases	All appeals from decrees and orders of Senior Civil Judges now lie to the District Court, irrespective of valuation
Section 4	No retrospective provision	Amendments declared retrospective with effect from 28.08.2007 subject to the interpretation adopted by the Division Bench
KARNATAKA HIGH COURT ACT, 1961
Section 2(3) – First Appeal	Included first appeals from subordinate civil courts	Restricted to appeals arising from judgments and decrees of City Civil Judges exercising original jurisdiction
Section 2(6) – Second Appeal	General definition of second appeals	Modified to reflect appeals arising from Senior Civil Judges and District Judges exercising appellate jurisdiction
Section 5 (i)	First Appeals above Rs. 15 lakhs were heard by a Division Bench, and others by a Single Judge	All First Appeals shall be heard by a Single Judge of the High Court.

These amendments represent a conscious legislative shift towards decentralising first appellate jurisdiction. The District Courts now serve as the principal first appellate courts for decrees passed by Senior Civil Judges across the State, while the High Court's role in first appeals has been significantly narrowed. The constitutional validity of this legislative restructuring formed the central issue before the Division Bench.

Key takeaways

• The Karnataka High Court has upheld the constitutional validity of the Karnataka Civil Courts (Amendment) Act, 2023 and the Karnataka High Court (Amendment) Act, 2023, affirming the Legislature's power to restructure civil appellate jurisdiction.

• The judgment applies the Supreme Court’s resolution in Neena Aneja v. Jai Prakash Associates Ltd. of the debate on whether litigants possess a vested right to a particular appellate forum, holding that while the right to appeal is substantive, the forum of appeal is procedural.

• By reading down the retrospective operation of Section 4 of the Civil Courts Amendment Act, the Court ensured that concluded appeals and orders already passed remain undisturbed while permitting the transfer of pending appeals.

• The decision substantially alters the appellate landscape in Karnataka by shifting appeals from Senior Civil Judges to the District Courts and restricting the High Court's first appellate jurisdiction largely to matters arising from the Bengaluru City Civil Courts.

• The judgment is likely to have a significant institutional impact, redefining the role of the High Court in civil appellate adjudication while strengthening the District Judiciary as the principal forum for first appeals.

• The judgment also marks the limits of judicial repair. The Division Bench corrected the Single Judge’s direction that the amendments operate prospectively, treating the substitution of a new commencement date as legislation, while confining the retrospective clause by reading down as interpretation.

The scope of judicial review

Before addressing the substantive challenges, the Division Bench reiterated the limited scope of judicial review over plenary legislation. Referring to State of Andhra Pradesh v. McDowell & Co. (1996) 3 SCC 709 and Shayara Bano v. Union of India (2017) 9 SCC 1, it observed that courts are concerned with the constitutional validity of legislation and not its wisdom or efficacy.^[2] Whether the amendments would actually reduce pendency or merely redistribute appellate work between the High Court and the District Judiciary was held to be a matter of legislative policy. Since the State possessed the legislative competence to restructure appellate jurisdiction and no constitutional limitation was infringed, the Court declined to interfere with the Legislature's policy choice.

How the matter reached the division bench

The controversy reached the Division Bench through three prior attempts to address the missing savings clause. The State Government issued an order dated 24.06.2024 under Section 4’s removal of difficulties power, declaring the amended provisions prospective with effect from 19.06.2024. A learned Single Judge, by judgment dated 24.09.2025 in W.P. No. 201536/2024, held that the order was beyond power, since the executive cannot amend a statute by administrative order. The learned Single Judge upheld both enactments but set aside the retrospective operation altogether, directing prospective application while saving past judgments and transferring pending appeals. Another Single Judge, by order dated 19.11.2025, doubted the correctness of that view and referred the matter to a Larger Bench.^[3] The writ petition and the writ appeal were then heard together by the Division Bench of the Chief Justice and Justice C.M. Poonacha.

The legislative backdrop

The reform did not originate in the Legislature alone. In Smt. Thirakavva v. Smt. Ratnavva (2023 SCC OnLine Kar 15), the High Court had itself recommended conferring first appellate jurisdiction on District Judges, describing the change as a step towards justice at the doorstep. The Karnataka Law Commission concurred and, recording that 22,698 first appeals were pending against 336 available District Judges, recommended that the amendment be made retrospective precisely so that pending appeals could be transferred. The Statement of Objects and Reasons echoed the aim of reducing the pendency in the High Court. These materials later became the foundation of the Court’s construction of Section 4.^[4]

Reading down Section 4

The most significant aspect of the judgment concerns the Court's treatment of Section 4 of the Karnataka Civil Courts (Amendment) Act. The provision expressly declared that the amendments would take effect retrospectively from 28.08.2007. If applied literally, it would necessarily follow that the High Court lacked jurisdiction to entertain RFAs throughout the intervening period. Such an interpretation would cast doubt on every RFA decided by the High Court over nearly seventeen years, exposing thousands of judgments to collateral challenge and creating widespread uncertainty regarding proceedings that had long attained finality.^[5]

The petitioners argued that the absence of an express saving clause rendered the provision manifestly arbitrary. According to them, retrospective legislation cannot ordinarily be construed so as to invalidate concluded judicial proceedings unless the Legislature has unequivocally expressed such an intention. The State, however, contended that the retrospective clause was intended only to facilitate the transfer of pending appeals and not to reopen or invalidate judgments already delivered. Relying on decisions including Union of India v. Hansoli Devi (2002) 7 SCC 273, British Airways Plc. v. Union of India 2002 (2) SCC 95 and Bengal Immunity Co. Ltd. v. State of Bihar AIR 1955 SC 661 (7J), it urged the Court to adopt a purposive interpretation that would preserve legislative intent while avoiding absurd consequences.^[6]

The Division Bench accepted the State's submission. Referring to the settled principles of purposive interpretation and the doctrine of reading down, the Court held that where a statutory provision is reasonably capable of two constructions, the interpretation that preserves its constitutionality and furthers the legislative object must be preferred. Nothing in the legislative scheme suggested that the Legislature intended to invalidate judgments that had already attained finality. On the contrary, such a consequence would undermine certainty in the administration of justice and defeat the very object of the legislation.

Instead of striking down Section 4, the Court therefore read down its retrospective operation. It held that the provision would apply only to pending appellate proceedings. At paragraph 115, the Court excluded from the retrospective operation (i) all appeals concluded by final judgments and orders and (ii) all orders passed in proceedings that were pending. Accordingly, pending RFAs would stand transferred to the competent appellate forum and continue from the stage at which they were pending. At the same time, final judgments already rendered by the High Court, and interim orders passed before transfer would remain valid and operative and would not be treated as non est or without jurisdiction.^[7]

This constitutes the judgment's most important constitutional contribution. Rather than invalidating legislative policy because of the breadth of its language, the Court harmonised the retrospective clause with constitutional principles protecting judicial finality. The doctrine of reading down thus became the mechanism through which the Court simultaneously preserved legislative intent, ensured continuity in the administration of justice and avoided the enormous disruption that would have followed from a literal interpretation of Section 4.

Forum of Appeal remains procedural

The Division Bench also rejected the petitioners’ contention that litigants possess a vested right to have their appeals heard by the High Court. Following the Supreme Court's decision in Neena Aneja v. Jai Prakash Associates Ltd. (2022) 2 SCC 161, the Court reiterated that although the right to appeal is a substantive right that accrues upon the institution of proceedings, the forum before which the appeal is heard is a matter of procedure. Since the amendments merely shifted the forum without extinguishing or restricting the right of appeal itself, they were procedural in nature and validly applied to pending matters.^[8] 

Article 14 and other constitutional challenges

The remaining constitutional challenges were dealt with briefly. The Court held that the distinction between appeals arising from the Bengaluru City Civil Courts and those arising from Senior Civil Judges elsewhere in the State did not violate Article 14 because City Civil Judges belong to the cadre of District Judges, thereby constituting an intelligible differentia having a rational nexus with the object of restructuring appellate jurisdiction. The Court also rejected the contention that prior consultation with the High Court was a constitutional prerequisite for such amendments, holding that no statutory or constitutional provision imposed such a requirement.^[9]

Did the Court Legislate?

The most searching criticism of the judgment is that the saving clause that now governs Karnataka’s appellate transition exists because a court articulated it. The amicus curiae had argued, as recorded at paragraph 23 of the judgment, that giving the amendments prospective effect, as the Single Judge had done, was tantamount to legislating and impermissible in law. What is instructive is that the Division Bench substantially accepted that criticism and applied it to the Single Judge’s order rather than to its own approach. Setting aside the retrospective clause and decreeing prospective operation substitutes a legislative choice that the enacting body never made, since it amounts to a judge selecting a new commencement date for the statute. The Government’s order of 24.06.2024 had failed for the parallel reason that a removal of difficulties clause confers no power to amend the Act.^[10]

Three attempts were thus made at the same repair, with the executive proceeding by order, the Single Judge by decree, and the Division Bench by construction. Only the third survived. The distinction the judgment draws is that reading down enforces the intent the Legislature actually enacted, whereas the other two interventions replaced it. The Bench anchored that intent in the Legislature’s own materials, namely the recommendation in Thirakavva, the Law Commission’s opinion and the Statement of Objects and Reasons, and it invoked the discipline stated in Union of India v. Hansoli Devi (2002) 7 SCC 273. Words may be read into a statute only where the court can say with certainty that the draftsman and the Legislature would have inserted them had the omission been noticed.^[11]

Whether that distinction wholly answers the objection is a question worth holding open. The certainty demanded by Hansoli Devi existed here only because the legislative record was unusually complete and because no party, including the State, contended for the literal result. Where the extrinsic materials are thin or contested, the same technique would shade from construction into policy making. Narayanamma is therefore better read as a boundary than as a licence. A court may confine a statute’s operation to what its ascertainable purpose supports, but it may not substitute a command that the Legislature never issued.

Practical implications - A new appellate landscape

Position after judgment	Effect
Appeals from Senior Civil Judges	To be filed and heard before the jurisdictional District Court, irrespective of the valuation of the suit
Appeals from the Bengaluru City Civil Court	Shall continue to lie before the High Court and shall be heard by a Single Judge
Division Bench RFAs	No Regular First Appeal shall be heard by a Division Bench. All such appeals are to be heard by a Single Judge
Pending RFAs	Stand transferred to the competent appellate forum and proceed from the stage at which they are pending, subject to the directions contained in the judgment
Concluded RFAs	Final judgments and orders already passed remain unaffected and retain their validity
Interim Orders in Pending Appeals	Interim orders and proceedings already undertaken prior to the transfer remain unaffected and are not to be treated as illegal, non est or a nullity.

Conclusion

The decision in Narayanamma v. State of Karnataka is far more than a judgment upholding two legislative enactments. It is a judicial endorsement of a structural reform that fundamentally reorganises Karnataka's civil appellate framework.

At its core, the judgment reiterates three important principles. First, while the right to appeal is a substantive right, the forum of appeal is procedural and may be altered by legislation. Secondly, retrospective legislation must be interpreted in a manner that furthers legislative intent without unsettling concluded judicial proceedings. Finally, courts exercising judicial review do not sit in appeal over legislative wisdom. Unless a statute transgresses constitutional limitations, policy choices remain within the legislative domain.

The judgment is equally significant for the pragmatic approach adopted by the Division Bench. Rather than striking down the retrospective clause, the Court employed the doctrine of reading down to preserve both legislative intent and judicial finality. In doing so, it ensured that pending proceedings would seamlessly transition to the revised appellate framework while safeguarding concluded appeals and existing orders.

Viewed more broadly, the decision reflects a conscious shift towards decentralising civil appellate adjudication and strengthening the District Judiciary as the principal forum for first appeals. Whether the reforms ultimately achieve the Legislature's objective of reducing pendency remains to be seen. There can be little doubt, however, that the judgment has redrawn the appellate landscape in Karnataka. Its more enduring lesson lies in where it fixed the line between the two branches. A court may iron out the creases in an enactment, but it must not alter the material of which the Act is woven.

[1] Karnataka Act No. 33 of 2024 and Karnataka Act No. 32 of 2024, both first published in the Karnataka Gazette (Extraordinary) on 19.06.2024.

[2] Narayanamma v. State of Karnataka, W.P. No. 17588 of 2024 c/w W.A. No. 200260 of 2025, decided on 08.07.2026 [Narayanamma], paragraphs 29 to 31 and 43 to 46.

[3] Narayanamma (n 2), paragraphs 5, 7, 16 and 118 to 120, recording the order dated 24.06.2024, the judgment dated 24.09.2025 and the reference dated 19.11.2025.

[4] Narayanamma (n 2), paragraphs 38 to 41.

[5] Narayanamma (n 2), paragraphs 70 and 96.

[6] Narayanamma (n 2), paragraphs 28 and 87 to 89.

[7] Narayanamma (n 2), paragraphs 115, 121 and 122.

[8] Narayanamma (n 2), paragraphs 49 to 60. See also Garikapati Veeraya v. N. Subbiah Choudhry (1957) 1 SCC 180 on the substantive character of the right of appeal.

[9] Narayanamma (n 2), paragraphs 35 to 37, 42, 116 and 117.

[10] Narayanamma (n 2), paragraphs 23, 118 and 119.

[11] Quoted in Narayanamma (n 2), paragraph 87.