Rajasthan High Court Sets Aside Unsigned GST Notice And ₹3.13 Lakh Demand Against Mayur Timber

The Rajasthan High Court on 11 August set aside an unsigned Goods and Services Tax (GST) show-cause notice and consequential demand of over Rs. 3.13 lakh raised against Mayur Timber, along with interest of Rs. 4,26,002 and an equivalent penalty. A Division Bench comprising Justices Arun Monga and Ashutosh Kumar held that mere generation of a document on the GST portal or allotment of a reference number cannot replace the mandatory requirement of authentication under Rule 26(3) of the Central...

Executing Court Cannot Reject Award Where Parties Mutually Nominated Arbitrator: Kerala High Court

The Kerala High Court on 4 August held that an executing court cannot refuse to enforce an arbitral award on the ground of unilateral appointment of the arbitrator when the parties themselves had mutually nominated the arbitrator in their agreement. Justice Easwaran set aside an order of the Additional District Court, Kozhikode, which had dismissed an execution petition filed by Hedge Finance Limited to enforce an arbitral award for Rs. 3.47 lakh with 18% interest against Sangeetha A.V. The...

GST Cannot Be Levied On Penalty Imposed On TASMAC Employee For Stock Shortage: Madras High Court

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on 14 August held that GST cannot be levied on a penalty imposed on an employee for shortage of liquor stock, observing that such a penalty arising from an employer-employee relationship cannot, by itself, be treated as a supply of service under GST law. A Division Bench comprising Justices M. Dhandapani and N. Dilip Kumar made the observation while dismissing an intra-court appeal filed by the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation Limited (TASMAC)....

Rajasthan High Court Holds ₹45,000 Paid To Municipality Cannot Offset Labour Cess Liability Of Hospital

The Rajasthan High Court on 5 August declined to interfere with labour cess recovery proceedings against Saini Multispecialty Hospital, holding that payment of Rs. 45,000 to a municipal body could not by itself discharge the hospital's statutory liability under the Building and Other Construction Workers' Welfare Cess Act, 1996. A Division Bench comprising Justices Arun Monga and Ashutosh Kumar at the Jaipur Bench held that the cess had to be assessed and deposited with the authority prescribed...

Official Liquidator Gets 3 Years From Winding Up Order To File Claim: Kerala High Court

The Kerala High Court on 31 August held that a claim instituted by an Official Liquidator under Section 446 of the Companies Act, 1956, in respect of a legally enforceable claim is governed by the three year limitation period under Article 137 of the Limitation Act, 1963, reckoned from the date of the winding up order, with the benefit of the additional one year period under Section 458A of the Companies Act. Justice Harisankar V Menon rejected the respondent, Miny Zachariah's objection that...

Arbitrator Can Award Escalation For Employer-Caused Delay Without Contractual Clause: J&K High Court

On 29 August, the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh held that an Arbitrator can award escalation for delay attributable to the employer even when the contract does not contain a 'Price Escalation Clause'. Justice Shahzad Azeem upheld an arbitral award of Rs. 21.19 lakh in favour of a contractor, finding that the Arbitrator had based the escalation award on the Department's default in supplying construction material and supported the finding with evidence. The Bench held: “The...

Delhi High Court Temporarily Restrains Alleged Fraudsters In Recruitment Scam From Using HCL Marks

The Delhi High Court on 24 August restrained five newly added defendants from using HCL Corporation's trademarks, holding that the company had made out a prima facie case of trademark infringement and passing off in a suit concerning an alleged fraudulent recruitment racket operated in its name. Justice Jyoti Singh extended the interim injunction earlier granted on 10 February 2026 after HCL alleged that the defendants were colluding with the original defendants to impersonate its...

Delhi High Court Rejects Reddy Pharmaceuticals' Review Plea In 'REDDY' Trademark Dispute With DRL

The Delhi High Court on 14 August dismissed a review petition filed by Reddy Pharmaceuticals Ltd., refusing to revisit its earlier judgment upholding a permanent injunction restraining the company from using the mark “REDDY” and directing removal of its registered trademark from the Register of Trade Marks. A Division Bench of Justice C. Hari Shankar and Justice Om Prakash Shukla held that none of the errors alleged by Reddy Pharmaceuticals (RPL) constituted an “error apparent on the...

Delhi High Court Rejects Trademark Appeal Over “DIGESTO PLUS”, Says Mark Common To Trade

The Delhi High Court on 20 August dismissed an appeal filed by Hahnemann Scientific Laboratory India Pvt. Ltd. against Meera Rastogi, trading as Hahnemann Memorial Laboratory, in a trademark dispute over the use of the mark “DIGESTO PLUS”. A Division Bench of Justices V. Kameswar Rao and Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora held that the word “DIGESTO” is common to the trade and cannot, by itself, establish deceptive similarity between competing marks. It observed: “The commonality of the descriptive...

Calcutta High Court Rejects Injunction Against New Central Book Agency After Years Of Inaction

The Calcutta High Court on 27 August dismissed an interim injunction application filed by Pares Chandra Das, author and original copyright holder of two English grammar textbooks, and his son Amitava Das, against their long-time publisher, New Central Book Agency Private Limited. Justice Krishna Rao held that authors cannot seek an interim injunction against continued publication of their books after allowing the publisher to publish them for years despite claiming that the publication...

Madras High Court Rejects Film Archive's Copyright Claim Over 'Aval Appadithan' Production Stills

The Madras High Court on 27 August dismissed an appeal filed by The Cinema Resource Centre, a Chennai-based film archive, in a copyright dispute over production photographs from the 1978 Tamil film Aval Appadithan. A Division Bench of Justices P. Velmurugan and K. Govindarajan Thilakavadi upheld the 2021 order of a Single Judge directing the archive to return the original photographs, delete their digital and physical copies, and stop displaying them on its website. The judges observed: “The...

Arbitration Act Sec. 11(6) Is Default Provision, Can't Override Agreed 3-Member Tribunal: Allahabad HC

The Allahabad High Court on 20 August held that Section 11(6) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 is a default provision that can be invoked only when parties are unable to secure the appointment of an arbitrator through the procedure agreed upon in their contract, and cannot be used to replace an agreed three-member tribunal with a sole arbitrator. Justice Jaspreet Singh dismissed S. H. Infratech Pvt. Ltd's petition seeking appointment of a sole arbitrator, holding that where a party...