INBREW BEVERAGES PVT. LTD. Vs. MOUNT DISTILLERIES LIMITED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Petitioner herein, who was the Plaintiff before the Learned Commercial Court, East Sikkim, at Gangtok, filed a Suit for Infringement, Passing off of Trade Mark, Infringement of Copyright, Injunction and other consequential reliefs, under Ss. 28(1) and 29 of the Trade Marks Act, 1999, against the Defendant/ Respondent. The Suit was valued at ? 1,00,00,000/- (Rupees one crore) only.

(2.) The original Plaintiff was the United Spirits Limited (USL). The business was later taken over by the present Petitioner who was thereby transposed as the Plaintiff. After closure of the evidence before the Commercial Court and when the matter was fixed for final arguments, the Petitioner filed a Petition under Order XI Rule 1(5), read with Sec. 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (hereinafter, 'CPC'), dtd. 28/9/2023, pertaining to disclosure, discovery and inspection of documents in suits, vide which, the Petitioner sought to file the following documents;

(3.) Advancing the plea that the Petition be allowed, Learned Counsel for the Petitioner submitted that the Suit was filed in the year 2018. The entire evidence of the litigating parties was recorded and completed in June, 2022. The USL was taken over by Inbrew Beverages Pvt. Ltd., the present Petitioner Company on 30/9/2022, who stepped into the shoes of the original Plaintiff. The present Petitioner, while examining the documents handed over to it by the USL and relied on in the dispute, applied for the 'certified to be true copies' of the documents from the Trade Mark Registry, located at New Delhi, which were accordingly made available. The Petitioner then sought to file the documents before the Commercial Court, but their Petition under Order XI Read with Rule 5(1) supra was rejected vide the impugned Order dtd. 24/11/2023, in I.P.R. Suit No.01 of 2018. That, disallowing the Petitioner to file these documents would be to their prejudice, as the original Plaintiff had failed to take necessary steps and the Petition ought to be allowed to rely on the documents to substantiate their case. Hence, the impugned Order be set aside and the instant Petition be allowed.