DATE OF JUDGEMENT:
17/01/2022
BENCH:
JUSTICE MS. ASHA MENON
PARTIES:
PETITIONER: H.S. SAHNI
RESPONDENT: MUKUL SINGHAL AND ORS.
SUBJECT
The Delhi High Court addressed an issue concerning the stay of a later lawsuit under Section 10 of the Civil Procedure Code, 1908, in cases where the subject matter is identical to that of a preceding lawsuit.
OVERVIEW
- This case starts with the Petitioner H.S. Sahni who sued Mukul Singhal and Gaurav Singhal, associates of M/s M.G. Cables, as the sole proprietor of M/s M.K. Auto Sales.
- The petitioner alleged that he had been manufacturing vehicle parts under the title M/s Auto Sales Corporation since 1986. From 1989, when the petitioner's company gained Sales Tax registration, he had sought for registration of his trademarksM.G. and M.G.I. asserting user.
- Over time, the market had grown to associate the trademarks with the petitioner's and his company's products and services. The respondents were accused of producing, advertising, and supplying similar items to the petitioner under the trademark M.G. Cable and the brand name M.G. Cables (India).
- The petitioner's trademark and brand name were virtually identical/deceptively same. As a result, the plaintiff requested trademark rights and a cease-and-desist order prohibiting the defendants from using the infringed trademark and trade name, or any other label or brand name remarkably like the petitioner's trademark in any item or brand, particularly equivalent products.
- The respondent argued that the current litigation was banned and unmaintainable, and therefore it was likely to be halted because the respondents had previously submitted a complaint on the very same topic.
- Few issues were submitted by the Trial court itself and appeals that were against the issues were still pending.
LEGAL PROVISION
SECTION 10 OF THE C.P.C: Stay of suit
ISSUE
- • Whether the current suit was liable to be halted under section 10 of the CPC?
JUDGEMENT ANALYSIS
- The Delhi High Court relied upon the Supreme Court's decision in Aspi Jal &Anr. v. Khushroo Rustom Dadyburjor. In this decision, the Supreme Court stated that Section 10 C.P.C.'s deleterious language made the provision compulsory.
- The High Court observed that the Court where the second complaint was filed would be barred from continuing with the prosecution of that case.
- The Supreme Court's ruling in Aspi (Supra) reiterated that Section 10 of the Code's essential purpose and basic intent is to prohibit courts of legislative authority from concurrently entertaining and settling disputes in two parallel litigations in respect of the same reason.
- It stated that the goal is to eliminate the likelihood of two courts issuing inconsistent orders for the same remedy and to safeguard the respondent from multiple hearings. The Court stated that both sides claim the right to their individual trademarks, stating that the other party was using a confusingly similar trademark after reading the pleas in both suits.
- As a result, the source material of the very first lawsuit and the current lawsuit were one and the same.
- The court stated that it was found that simultaneous hearings would result in not just a plethora of lawsuits, as well as the risk of contradictory outcomes, such as one side being permitted to utilise its trademarks in one lawsuit but barred from doing so in the next.
- Because of the established law on the application of Section 10 of the CPC, the lawsuit was to be stayed.
CONCLUSION
None of the Courts shall continue with the hearing of any lawsuit wherein the subject in question is indeed immediately and fundamentally in question in an earlier initiated lawsuit among the same litigants, in the same or any other Court in India, according to Section 10 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The key test to decide if Section 10 is relevant or not, according to Justice Asha Menon, is to look at the result made in the first claim which served as res-judicata in the later suit.
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