Foreign Court cannot restrain party from pursuing its cause before Indian Courts, when Indian jurisdiction is the only forum competent to adjudicate claim
Plaintiff-Interdigital Technology Corporation challenged infringement of their Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) by defendants who manufacture cellular handsets, before Delhi High Court. Devices manufactured by the defendant are compliant with 3G and 4G standards which require SEPs and its usage without due authorisation, amounts to infringement. Defendants had already filed SEP royalty rate-setting suit before Wuhan Court in China and have been unfair, not only to plaintiffs, but also to Delhi Court as no copy of anti-suit injunction application filed before Wuhan Court, furnished in reply of defendant. This amounted to fraud on Court and material concealment from plaintiffs
It is totally impermissible for a Court in one sovereign jurisdiction to injunct the party before it from pursuing its cause against infringement of its intellectual property before another sovereign jurisdiction, where such latter jurisdiction is the only forum competent to adjudicate the claim of infringement, save and except where continuation of the infringement proceedings are vexatious or oppressive to the proceedings pending before the former, injuncting, court. The mere fact that one or other aspect of the controversy may overlap cannot be a ground to grant such injunction. Nor can the consideration of the two courts arriving at differing decisions on that part of the issue which may overlap be regarded as sufficient to grant such injunction, which would result in denying the plaintiff seeking injunction against infringement the right to agitate such claim before the only forum competent to adjudicate thereon. Such injunction would be ex facie destructive of the principle of comity of courts. It cannot be tolerated even for a day. A clear case for injuncting enforcement, against the plaintiff, before the court before whom the action for infringement is brought, of such a diktat is, therefore, made out. Grant of anti-enforcement injunction is, therefore, imperative in such a case.
The right of the citizen, in this country, to legal redressal to ventilate his legitimate rights, is hallowed, sacred, and fundamental. It is a sanctified and preambular constitutional goal, and derives sustenance from the most sublime of our fundamental rights, including those consecrated by Articles 14 and 21. It is an inviolable and inalienable facet of access to justice. What the order of the Wuhan Court does, unfortunately, is to deny, to the plaintiffs, the right to even flavour this essence, without due justification. Specifically in the Indian context, our Constitution guarantees “justice, social economic and political” to every citizen. This guarantee cannot be sacrificed at the altar of comity.
Appearing counsel/s : Mr. Gourab Banerji, Mr. Pravin Anand, Ms. Vaishali Mittal, Mr. Siddhant Chamola, Ms. Manisha Singh, Ms. Pallavi Bhatnagar, Mr. Neeraj K. Kaul, Mr. Saikrishna Rajagopal, Mr. Siddharth Chopra, Ms. Sneha Jain, Ms. Garima Sahney, Ms. Stuti Dhyani, Ms. Charu Grover, Ms. Anu Paarcha, Mr. Vivek Ayyagari, Dr. Victor Vaibhav Tandon, Mr. Arjun Gadhoke, Mr. Avijit Kumar, Mr. Aniruddh Bhatia, Ms. Pritha Suri and Ms. Chanan Parwani,
