UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Vs. B.D. BHANDARI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS suit was instituted to restrain the defendants from selling books published by them and titled MBD English Guide B.A./B.Sc./B.COM Part I (Guru Nanak Dev University), MBD English Guide B.A./B.Sc./B.COM Part II (Guru Nanak Dev University) and MBD English Guide B.A./B.Sc./B.COM Part III (Guru Nanak Dev University) for the reason that they contained illegal and unauthorized reproduction of literary content of the plaintiffs ' publication titled "Advance English Grammar by Martin Hewings ". Vide ex parte order dated 10th November, 2004 the defendants were restrained from utilizing, incorporating the verbatim text taken from the plaintiff 's publications. The defendants contested the suit. The application for interim relief was disposed of vide order dated 8th June, 2005 whereby the ex parte order dated 10th November, 2004 was confirmed during the pendency of the suit.

(2.) ISSUES as under were framed on the pleadings of the parties:

(3.) THOUGH the defendants are ex parte, but a perusal of the written statement of the defendants and the issues framed would show that the defendants did not really contest the copyright of the plaintiff. The defendants claimed to be in the business, inter alia, of publishing guides or what is in this part of the country called Kunji or Dukki. It was the case of the defendants that the textbook of the plaintiff subject matter of the suit was prescribed by the Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar for the students of BA Part I, II and III; that they were merely for the facility of the students and for better understanding of the subject matter by the students publishing the guides; that the introduction before each exercise in the two publications were different; that the illustrations in the textbook of the plaintiff were not existing in the publication of the defendants; that while the answers in the plaintiff 's publication were at the end of the book, the questions and answers were together in the publication of the defendants; that while the plaintiff 's publication contains two choice of answers for most of the questions, the defendants publication gave only one answer. It was thus the case of the defendants that the plaintiff 's publication being a course book of the university and the defendants being engaged in publishing guides as aforesaid, had to naturally publish the answers as in the plaintiff 's book and could not have published different answers. The defendants have gone to the extent of stating that they have also given credit to the plaintiff in their publication. It was, however, contended that the format of the two books was different. It was the case of the plaintiff 's themselves that while the plaintiff 's publication was for Rs 95 only, the defendants publications were for over Rs 600.00.