Two-Year Delay In Pronouncing Arbitral Award Not Enough To Set It Aside: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court has held that a two-year delay in pronouncing an arbitral award cannot, by itself, be a ground to set aside the award unless the delay is unexplained and is shown to have adversely affected the findings.A Division Bench of Justice C. Hari Shankar and Justice Vinod Kumar made the observation while setting aside a single judge's order.The order had set aside a ₹65.12 crore arbitral award in favour of Unison Hotels Private Limited against IFFCO Tokio General Insurance Company...

Unreasonable Delay In Taking SARFAESI Possession Defeats Act: Bombay High Court

The Bombay High Court has pulled up an Advocate Commissioner and the police for failing to secure physical possession of a property despite a May 2025 order under the SARFAESI Act, holding that the “unreasonable and unexplained delay” had “completely defeated” the law's provisions. A Division Bench of Justice Manish Pitale and Justice Shreeram V. Shirsat directed the Advocate Commissioner, with police assistance, to take physical possession of the secured property on September 17, 2026 and ...

Forgery Allegation Alone No Ground To Reject Plea For Arbitrator Appointment: Bombay High Court

The Bombay High Court has held that an allegation that an arbitration agreement was forged does not automatically require rejection of an application for appointment of an arbitrator where independent documents provide a prima facie basis for the agreement's existence. Justice Amit Borkar appointed Advocate Ranjeev Carvalho as sole arbitrator to decide the Patkar House redevelopment dispute between developer Kiran Narendra Patkar and Milan Narendra Patkar. All objections concerning the...

Calcutta High Court Quashes Income-Tax Reassessment Against McNally Bharat After IBC Resolution Plan

The Calcutta High Court has quashed income-tax reassessment proceedings against McNally Bharat Engineering Company Limited, holding that the authorities failed to satisfy the statutory conditions for reopening the assessment and acted contrary to the company's NCLT-approved resolution plan. Justice Smita Das De allowed the company's writ petition and set aside the notice and order issued by the tax authorities along with all consequential proceedings. The authorities were also...

GST Authority Cannot Pass Fresh Ex-Parte Order After Ignoring Replies: Allahabad High Court

The Allahabad High Court has held that an adjudicating authority under the U.P. GST Act, 2017 must recall an order if it finds that it failed to consider the replies filed against the proceedings and hear the person afresh. It cannot consider those replies itself and pass a fresh ex-parte order on merits while exercising the rectification power under Section 161 of the Act. A Division Bench of Justices Saumitra Dayal Singh and Swarupama Chaturvedi set aside an order passed against Wonder...

Delhi High Court Cancels 'LNK' Trademark Over Similarity With Basant Lal's 'L&K' Sanitary Products Mark

The Delhi High Court on 3 September cancelled the trademark “LNK”, registered by Shakti Hydraulic Engineers for sanitary products, after finding it deceptively similar to “L&K”, an older registered mark belonging to Basant Lal. Justice Jyoti Singh allowed Lal's petition and directed the Registrar of Trademarks to remove Shakti Hydraulic Engineers' “LNK” registration from the register and rectify it within eight weeks. The Bench observed: “LNK is deceptively similar, visually and...

Gujarat High Court Upholds Tax Disallowance To J.K. Paper On Expenses For Supervising Farmer-Grown Trees

The Gujarat High Court has upheld an Income Tax Appellate Tribunal finding that expenditure incurred by J K Paper Limited on supervising trees grown by farmers could not be treated as agricultural expenditure. The tribunal had also excluded expenditure on producing coppice shoots through a process that did not involve primary operations on land.A bench of Justice Bhargav D. Karia and Justice Pranav Trivedi upheld the tribunal's decision to restrict the disallowance of agricultural loss to ₹9.43...

Bombay High Court Rejects Baskin Robbins Licensee Graviss Foods' 'ICE CREAM ROCKS' Trademark Bid

The Bombay High Court on 16 September dismissed petitions filed by Graviss Foods, the Indian licensee of Baskin Robbins, challenging the Registrar of Trade Marks' rejection of its applications to register “ICE CREAM ROCKS”. Justice Somasekhar Sundaresan observed that the phrase “ICE CREAM ROCKS” is too generic and descriptive to acquire distinctive character warranting trademark protection. The Bench observed: “Merely adding 'ROCKS' to 'ICE CREAM' does not turn the needle in favour of making...

'Abominable': Allahabad High Court Pulls Up SBI For Debiting Wife's FD For Husband's Loan

The Allahabad High Court at Lucknow has pulled up the State Bank of India for debiting ₹19.90 lakh from a woman's fixed deposit towards her deceased husband's loan dues, calling the process “abominable” and “clearly an anathema to banking practice”.A bench of Justice Shekhar B Saraf and Justice Abdhesh Kumar Chaudhary held that SBI had failed to show any legal basis for debiting the account of Neha Mishra, who had no privity of contract with the bank, towards her husband's dues.Mishra's husband,...

Delhi High Court Blocks Piracy Websites From Streaming Amazon's Kunal Kemmu, Preity Zinta Film 'VIBE'

The Delhi High Court has restrained 11 piracy websites, including Cinevood, PVRPlay and 1TamilMV, from hosting, streaming or otherwise making Amazon's upcoming film “VIBE” available online without authorisation, ahead of its scheduled theatrical release.Justice Jyoti Singh passed the ex parte ad interim order on September 15 in a suit filed by Amazon Seller Services Private Limited. The film is scheduled for a pan-India theatrical release on September 18, 2026.“VIBE” is written and directed by...

Bombay Shaving Co. Takes Down Allegedly Disparaging Ad After Gillette Suit In Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court today noted that Visage Lines Personal Care Private Limited, the parent company of Bombay Shaving Company, has taken down a disputed advertisement after Gillette India filed a product disparagement suit. On a separate issue, Justice Jyoti Singh declined Gillette's request to immediately restrain a newly released advertisement by Bombay Shaving Company, saying the court would not intervene without a proper challenge being brought before it. “I am not going to permit you,...

'Vague Intuition' Of Arbitrator Bias Not Enough To Set Aside Award: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court has recently dismissed a challenge to an arbitral award, holding that a belated suspicion of bias cannot by itself justify interference with an award.“According to this Court, a vague intuition of biasness at such a belated stage or a simple suspicion by an unhappy party of biasness is not enough to claim biasness, as any such allegation must rest on solid facts, clear evidence, or statutory conflicts,” Justice Om Prakash Shukla held.The court was hearing a petition filed by...