N T RAGHUNATHAN Vs. ALL INDIA REPORTER LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a defendants' appeal against an order granting a temporary injunction to the plaintiff in a suit in which a permanent injunction for infringement of copyright, was claimed.

(2.) The circumstances under which the action in the trial Court was commenced may now be stated. The plaintiff, the All India Reporter Limited, Bombay, publishes a monthly law journal known as the All India Reporter. Apart from reports of judgments of various High Courts in India and of the Supreme Court of India it publishes at the head of the reports, notes and head-notes on points decided in those judgments. In 1955 the plaintiff commenced the practice of reporting in addition to the judgments and their respective head-notes, only notes and head-notes without the original judgments. These it published separately in the monthly parts of its publication and called "Notes of Unreported Cases" or "N.U.C." as they were repeatedly referred to at the Bar and as I shall hereafter refer to them.

(3.) According to the plaintiff, the preparations of the notes and head-notes involved the plaintiff in considerable expense in employing lawyer editors to prepare the notes, and when prepared, such notes constituted original literary work in which the plaintiff had a copyright.