Competent Court Can Examine Valuation Of IPR Suit Below ₹3 Lakhs, Transfer To Commercial Courts Not Necessary: Delhi High Court
Case: PANKAJ RAVJIBHAI PATEL TRADING AS RAKESH PHARMACEUTICALS v. SSS PHARMACHEM PVT. LTD.
Coram: Justice Yashwant Varma and Justice Dharmesh Sharma
Case No.: FAO (COMM) 98/2023
Court Observation: “We find no justification for the withdrawal of those matters from the competent courts and their placement before a commercial court for the purposes of ascertaining the correctness of the valuation as declared,”
“While we do not intend to convey a position of a deliberate undervaluation being accorded a judicial imprimatur, we are of the firm opinion that it would be wholly incorrect for courts to proceed on the presumption that an IPR suit when valued at below Rs. 3 lakhs is necessarily based on ulterior motives or a mala fide intent to avoid application of the CCA,”
“Ultimately the issue of a deliberate suppression of valuation would have to be considered and answered based on the facts obtaining in an individual case. All that we deem apposite to note and observe in this respect is that Vishal Pipes clearly appears to have been incorrectly decided when it formulated a direction mandating that normally in all IPR cases, the valuation ought to be Rs. 3 lakhs and above,”
“The directions formulated in Vishal Pipes and embodied in Para 66 (iv) and (v) thus clearly distort the distribution of matters between commercial and non-commercial courts as statutorily ordained. In fact, if those directions were to be affirmed, they would operate so as to create and confer jurisdiction on commercial courts contrary to the qualifying criterion as laid in place by the CCA,”
“To avoid inconvenience to parties, we request the concerned District Judges to display a list of all such matters indicating the courts to which they would revert and the dates on which they would be called before the appropriate courts. A list of all such matters carrying details as indicated above, may also be uploaded on the web portals of the concerned District Courts,”
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