Source: delhihighcourt.nic.in
A
Division Bench comprising of Hon'ble Mr. Justice Vipin Sanghi and Hon'ble Mr.
Justice I.S.Mehta of Hon’ble High Court of Delhi has recently taken cognizance
of the malpractice of Forum Shopping involving the Judges of the District Court
and certain practicing Advocates. Forum
shopping is a colloquial term for the practice of litigants having their legal
case heard in the court thought most likely to provide a favourable judgment. The
Bench has issued a notice in a Criminal Contempt filed by Capital Ventures Pvt. Ltd. along with the
other Intervenors, which raises very serious concerns about the manner in which
the matters particularly, suits are listed before particular Judicial Officers
in the District Courts. The Petitioner has brought out several instances where
the same counsel representing the respondents has moved repeated applications
in different suits to have the different suits listed before particular
Judicial Officers. The Petitioner has claimed that favourable orders were
obtained by the Respondents from the said Judicial Officers to which they were
not entitled on merits.
The
Hon’ble Bench without casting any aspersion either on the Counsel or on the
Judicial Officers, has directed that the IPR suits preferred by the Respondents
in question should not be listed before the aforesaid three Judicial Officers
and if so listed, be assigned to some other Courts by the concerned District
& Sessions Judge.
Additionally,
the Bench has also directed the Respondents to disclose in the reply the
following details:
i)
The number of suits it has filed in
respect of its IPR with complete particulars of suit number, the date of its
filing, the counsel through whom the same has been filed and the Judicial
Officers before whom the matter was listed initially;
ii)
Whether an application for marking and
listing before a particular Judicial Officer was moved;
iii)
The name of the Judicial Officer before
whom the matter was sought to be listed;
iv)
Whether the matter was listed before the
Judicial Officer as desired by the respondents;
v)
Whether any ex-parte orders of injunction
were passed, and;
vi)
The date of the ex-parte ad-interim orders
of injunction, if any.
It seems that the
Court has rightly triggered the malpractice of Forum Shopping being adopted by
litigants in IP suits. The anti-forum shopping
directions of Hon’ble Division Bench of the Hon’ble High Court of Delhi are clear
warning to the officers of Court that forum shopping can prove to be an
expensive affair for them.
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