COMPUTERONICS INTERNATIONAL LTD Vs. INFINITE COMPUTER SOLUTIONS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By this judgment, I propose to dispose of this application which has been filed by the plaintiff under the provisions of Order 39 Rules 1 & 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure, praying for order of restraint against the defendants "from dispossessing the Geographical Data Base, more specifically described in the plaint, to defendant Nos. 7 to 9 and/or creating any third party interest or otherwise deal with the same in the similar fashion". A further order is prayed for prohibiting the defendants from

(2.) In order to appreciate the respective contentions, it becomes necessary to examine some basic facts. It appears that defendant No. 1 entered into an agreement with the Kanpur Electricity Supply Company Limited (referred to as "KESCO" hereafter for brevity). M/s KESCO issued a letter of intent dated 23rd July, 2005 in favour of the defendants for computerisation of KESCO (Stage I) with supply and commissioning of related materials (on turnkey basis) vide tender specification No. KESCO/APDRP/2004-05/09 under a scheme known as the APDRP Scheme. The defendant No. 1 entered into a contract dated 8th August, 2005 with KESCO pursuant to this letter of intent. The defendant company outsourced a part of the project to the plaintiff and placed a work order upon it for conducting a survey, collecting, updating or collating of consumer and network assets data to an accuracy level of 99.9% to enable the defendant company to create a comprehensive geographical data base so established that it was, spatially consistent, plotted and geo referenced on 1:1000 scale KNN maps as required by KESCO to determine any loss incurred by it on account of unregistered consumer not paying for electricity consumed, theft etc. The defendants have asserted that accuracy of the data, therefore, was the essence of the contract. It was urged that otherwise the basic purpose of KESCO's project would not be achieved.

(3.) The plaintiff has placed reliance on the work order dated 28th September, 2005 of the defendant company for supply of the aforesaid data for 15 divisions and with regard to quality control and the respective responsibilities clearly laid down therein. On the other hand, as per the stipulated methodology, the maps provided by the defendant No. 1 were required to be split into divisions by the plaintiff and the existing networks as such were to be verified, marked and updated on the hard copies of the grid maps which were to be provided by the defendant to the plaintiff. The parameters were set out in the work order itself. Door to door survey was required to be conducted and a format was to be provided by the KESCO. The work order contained stipulations with regard to quality control and required accuracy level of 99.9% after the validation of the data.