Calcutta High Court Says IDFC First Bank Lost Right To Seek Arbitration After Waiting 11 Months In Loan Suit

The Calcutta High Court has dismissed IDFC First Bank Limited's appeal against a trial court order that refused to send a loan dispute to arbitration and struck off the bank's defence for failing to act within time. A division bench of Justice Debangsu Basak and Justice Md. Shabbar Rashidi upheld the order, finding that the bank had waited nearly 11 months after entering appearance in the suit before seeking arbitration. “In the case at hand, as noted above, the appellant/defendant came up...

Delhi High Court Sets Aside Rejection Of JFE Steel's Patent For Electrical Steel Sheet Manufacturing Method

The Delhi High Court has set aside a patent rejection order passed against JFE Steel Corporation. It held that the Controller of Patents should ordinarily not reject a patent application on a single technical ground while leaving other objections undecided, as such an approach could unfairly consume the limited 20-year patent term through repeated remands and appeals. A bench of Justice Tushar Rao Gedela observed that patent applications must be considered as a whole. It said the Controller...

Treating Returns Of Allotment Penalty Provision To Exclude Adjudicating Officer's Discretion Unconstitutional: Bombay HC

The Bombay High Court has held that penalties for defective filings relating to the issuance of securities cannot be imposed through a mechanical computation exercise without examining the nature, gravity, and impact of the default. It also called arbitrary the multiplication of penalties based solely on the number of directors on a company's board, while modifying a ₹64 lakh penalty imposed on a Nidhi company and its directors. Justice Somasekhar Sundaresan, hearing a petition by N.S.J.L...

Delhi High Court Sets Aside Royalty Order Against DVD Makers Over Philips' DVD Decoding Patent

The Delhi High Court has set aside a 2018 decree that had directed two DVD player makers to pay royalty to Dutch electronics company Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV for alleged infringement of its DVD decoding technology patent while also quashing punitive damages awarded against one of them.A Division Bench of Justice C. Hari Shankar and Justice Om Prakash Shukla allowed appeals by K.K. Bansal of Bhagirathi Electronics and his son Rajesh Bansal of Mangalam Technology, holding that Philips...

Arbitration Case-Management Orders Are Not Open To Section 34 Challenge: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court on 12 May held that procedural and case-management directions passed in arbitral proceedings, including orders refusing amendment of pleadings or additional document production, do not amount to an “interim award” under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 unless they finally determine substantive rights between the parties. Justice Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar dismissed a petition filed by Cinda Engineering and Construction Private Limited challenging an...

No Rectification For Debatable Points Under Section 254(2) Of Income Tax Act: Allahabad High Court

The Allahabad High Court on 6 May held that only mistakes apparent from the record can be rectified under Section 254(2) of the Income Tax Act, 1961, and that debatable issues fall outside its scope. A Division Bench of Justices Shekhar B. Saraf and Abdhesh Kumar Chaudhary dismissed the appeal filed by Abusaad Ahmad, upholding the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal's refusal to rectify its earlier order rejecting condonation of delay. It held: “In order to attract the power to rectify under...

Delhi High Court Restrains Unauthorised Use Of 'Bachpan Ka Pyar' Hook Line, Seeks Revenue Details From YouTubers

The Delhi High Court has granted temporary relief to Ivy Entertainment Private Limited in its copyright suit over the song Bachpan Ka Pyar and its hook line “jaane meri janeman bachpan ka pyar bhool nahi jaana re”. The court restrained certain YouTube channel operators and unidentified infringers from using it without authorisation, and directed three named channel operators to disclose revenue earned from exploiting the song. Justice Tushar Rao Gedela passed the ex parte ad-interim order on...

Delhi High Court Orders Takedown Of Pirated Copies Of Sanjay Dutt-Starrer Aakhri Sawal

A day after its theatrical release, the Delhi High Court protected the Sanjay Dutt-starrer Aakhri Sawal from online piracy, directing Google and Telegram to take down infringing content within 72 hours and granting a dynamic+ injunction to tackle newly discovered infringing links during the pendency of the suit. Justice Tushar Rao Gedela passed the ex parte ad interim order on May 16, 2026, on a suit filed by Nikhil Nanda Motion Pictures LLP, the film's production house, after it alleged that...

Supreme Court Issues Notice On IT Dept. Appeal Over Relief To Vedanta For TDS Default On Non-Resident Payments

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice on an appeal filed by the Income Tax Department against a Madras High Court ruling that had partly quashed tax proceedings against Vedanta Ltd. The case concerns its alleged failure to deduct tax on payments made to its overseas group entity. The Madras High Court had, on August 29, 2025 partly ruled in Vedanta's favour. It held that the tax department could not uniformly apply a seven-year limitation benchmark across all assessment years. Observing...

Calcutta High Court Refuses Arbitral Award Enforcement Over Indirect Unilateral Arbitrator Appointment

The Calcutta High Court has refused to enforce an ex parte arbitral award in favour of Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company Ltd., holding that a lender cannot indirectly secure the appointment of a sole arbitrator through an arbitral institution of its own choosing when the borrowers have neither consented to the process nor participated in it. Justice Gaurang Kanth held, “The law does not permit such a stratagem. The prohibition engrafted by Section 12(5) and the judicial decisions...

Supreme Court Seeks Union's Stand On Customs' Power To Question AIFTA Benefit Claims Despite Valid Origin Certificates

The Supreme Court on Monday sought the Union Government's stand in a dispute where importers have challenged customs authorities' jurisdiction to question preferential duty claims under the ASEAN-India Free Trade Agreement (AIFTA) despite valid Certificates of Origin issued by the exporting country. The Court also directed that no final adjudication order be passed in the matter for now. A Bench of Justices K.V. Viswanathan and Manmohan was hearing special leave petitions filed by importers,...

Party Cannot Invoke HC's Supervisory Jurisdiction After Withdrawing Arbitral Award Challenge: Punjab & Haryana HC

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Friday held that a party that withdraws its challenge to an arbitral award cannot later use the High Court's supervisory jurisdiction to reopen the same dispute through a different route. “The supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 being discretionary and equitable ought not to be exercised in favour of a litigant who has by withdrawing the objections abandoned the statutory remedy and now seeks to circumvent the consequences of that withdrawal." ...