Property and succession — coparcenary and ancestral property, partition, the daughter's rights after the 2005 amendment, testamentary and intestate succession, and the protections under the Transfer of Property Act.
The Supreme Court held that the restaurant mark NANDHINI was not deceptively similar to the dairy federation's NANDINI, because the goods, trade channels and consumers differed. A proprietor cannot monopolise an entire class of goods, only the goods it actually deals in.
On 8 June 2026 the Bombay High Court restrained Numen Pharma from using the mark 'ACIPROX', holding it phonetically similar to Alkem's registered 'ALCIPRO'. Justice Sharmila U. Deshmukh applied the heightened pharmaceutical confusion standard — the bare possibility of confusion is enough to injunct — and refused to dissect the rival marks syllable by syllable.
Valkya Editorial··6 min
TribunalCustoms, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal, Bangalore
A Bangalore Bench of CESTAT held that a building rented to an educational foundation for student accommodation falls within Section 66D(m) of the Finance Act 1994 — renting of a residential dwelling for use as residence — and is not service-taxable, because the exemption turns on residential use, not on the identity of the tenant.
A Division Bench of the Karnataka High Court held in June 2026 that property a grandfather self-acquired, and which fell to the father in a family partition, remains the father's separate and individual property — it does not take on the character of ancestral property in his hands, and a daughter therefore has no coparcenary right in it by birth. A digest of the holding and the settled line of Hindu-law authority it rests on.
The Supreme Court set aside a confirmed SARFAESI auction sale sixteen years on, holding that the balance-deposit timeline in Rule 9 of the Security Interest (Enforcement) Rules, 2002 is mandatory and goes to the root of the sale's validity. A digest of the facts, the holding, and what it means for auction purchasers and the heirs of a deceased guarantor.
The Delhi High Court held that protection of possession under Section 53A of the Transfer of Property Act 1882 can be claimed only on a registered agreement to sell, and that persons who entered as tenants cannot convert themselves into owners on an unregistered agreement. A digest of the facts, the holding, and why registration is now decisive.
A Division Bench of the Madras High Court revived the 'Idhayam' trademark suits, holding that the unauthorised affixing of a registered mark in India on goods meant solely for export is a triable cause of action for infringement. A digest of the facts, the Order VII Rule 11 error, and the export-as-use question under the Trade Marks Act 1999.
In July 2025 a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court revived Crocs' long-stalled enforcement campaign, holding that a common-law passing-off action is maintainable even where the product get-up is itself a registered design. A digest of the facts, the design/trade-dress overlap, and the doctrine's later trajectory through the Supreme Court.
In 1986 a two-judge Bench led by Bhagwati, CJI held that the discriminatory Travancore Christian Succession Act 1916 had already been repealed in 1951, so Syrian Christian daughters of former Travancore take an equal share with sons under the Indian Succession Act 1925. A digest of the facts, the statutory ratio, and the retrospectivity controversy that followed.
In 1978 a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court dismissed R.G. Anand's claim that the film 'New Delhi' had pirated his stage play 'Hum Hindustani', holding that there is no copyright in an idea, theme or plot. A digest of the facts, the seven propositions Justice Fazal Ali laid down, and the lay-observer test that still governs Indian infringement law.
In 1995 a three-judge Supreme Court bench held that the airwaves are public property, that the freedom to telecast and to receive information is part of Article 19(1)(a), and that the State could not claim an absolute broadcasting monopoly. A digest of the Hero Cup dispute, the holding on spectrum and free speech, and the case's role in the birth of an independent public broadcaster.
A two-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court held that EBC's copy-edited versions of judgments could attract copyright only where they bore the imprint of skill and judgment and a minimal degree of creativity. A digest of the originality threshold under section 13 of the Copyright Act 1957, the rejection of pure sweat-of-the-brow, and the line drawn between protectable and unprotectable editorial inputs.
In July 2025 a Bombay High Court Division Bench dismissed a public interest litigation alleging that Prada's Milan runway sandals copied the Kolhapuri Chappal geographical indication. The Court held that the right to sue for GI infringement belongs to registered proprietors and authorised users, not to advocates filing a PIL under Article 226. A digest of the facts, the locus and forum holding, and what it settles about GI enforcement.
The Supreme Court strikes down a Bihar statute that vested a 1924 heritage library in the State at one-rupee compensation as manifestly arbitrary under Art. 14.
A Division Bench held that Amenity TDR under Section 126(1)(b) of the MRTP Act crystallises on surrender of reserved land and cannot be waived by contract.
Embassy Property v. State of Karnataka holds that the NCLT cannot adjudicate public-law disputes under the MMDR Act, and a writ to the High Court lies against a coram non judice order.
The Supreme Court holds that a suit grounded in a prohibited benami arrangement cannot be saved by artful pleading, and that the 2016 Benami amendments are declaratory and retrospective.
Bombay HC declares 'Shaadi.com' a well-known mark under Section 2(1)(zg); its reputation transcends matchmaking, so 'getshaadi.com' infringes the mark.
In May 2024, a three-judge bench applied Indore Development Authority v. Manoharlal to hold that deemed lapse under Section 24(2) requires both non-payment and non-possession, upheld the Delhi acquisitions, and held that a subsequent change in the law is no ground for condonation of delay.
On 3 January 2025, a Division Bench of the Gujarat High Court held that the assignment of GIDC leasehold rights is akin to a sale of land excluded by Schedule III of the CGST Act, and not a taxable supply of service.
A 2022 bench held the 2018 Specific Relief Act amendment prospective and disturbed a specific-performance decree; in 2024 the Supreme Court allowed review, restored the High Court's decree on the merits and applied lis pendens, leaving the prospectivity question arguably open.
On 22 July 2025, the Rajasthan High Court at Jaipur held that Section 2(2) of the Hindu Succession Act is a formidable barrier denying Scheduled Tribe daughters intestate succession, restored the claimant's right, and urged Parliament to amend the provision.
On 14 August 2025, a two-judge bench refused Pernod Ricard an injunction against 'London Pride', holding that 'Pride' is publici juris in the liquor trade, that composite marks must be assessed as a whole under the anti-dissection rule, and that premium-whisky buyers are discerning consumers.
A three-judge bench held in 2019 that a person who has perfected title by adverse possession can use it to found a suit, not merely as a defence, resolving conflicting two-judge authority under Article 65 of the Limitation Act.
A three-judge bench overruled S.R. Batra v. Taruna Batra in 2020, holding that a 'shared household' under the Domestic Violence Act is not confined to property in which the husband holds title and can include a home owned by the in-laws.
On 19 April 2024, a two-judge bench restated the narrow scope of the Order XLVII review jurisdiction, protected reserved forest land against a private title claim, and imposed ₹5 lakh costs recoverable from the officers who filed collusive affidavits.
On 15 May 2026, a two-judge bench held that Section 6(5) of the Hindu Succession Act 1956 is a narrow saving clause that protects pre-20 December 2004 partitions from the retroactive coparcenary amendment of 2005, but does not bar a partition suit and does not displace daughters' independent Section 8 rights — which accrued on the intestate's death and pre-existed the 2005 amendment. An oral partition among sons alone cannot defeat the daughters' succession share, and a second Order VII Rule 11 CPC application on identical grounds is barred by res judicata.
Delhi HC IP-Division Single Judge (Tejas Karia J.) upheld an interim injunction restraining Flipkart from using 'MARQ' and 'MARQ by Flipkart' for electronics, holding the mark phonetically, structurally and visually similar to prior-user Marc Enterprises' 'MARC' and that addition of the Flipkart house mark could not cure the deception.
On 22 January 2026, a two-judge bench held that section 60(5)(c) IBC does not empower the NCLT to declare title in a disputed trademark when the approved resolution plan itself flags rival claims; trademark adjudication must be left to the competent civil court.
A 2-judge bench of the Supreme Court — *S.B. Sinha, J.* and *P.K. Balasubramanyan, J.* — held in April 2006 that *Section 529-A* of the *Companies Act 1956* created a *pari-passu* charge between workmen's dues and secured creditors as a class, but did not abolish inter-se priorities among secured creditors. Where Parliament has not expressly displaced the rule, *Section 48* of the *Transfer of Property Act 1882* applies — the first-created charge prevails over the second. The decision is not, strictly, a SARFAESI judgment; it is a Companies Act and TPA judgment whose inter-creditor reasoning has since been read into consortium-lending architecture, second-charge enforcement and — in academic commentary — into the *Section 53* IBC waterfall.
Bombay HC holds a national-security ban is a legitimate factor for the Registrar to refuse 'well-known' mark status; there is no vested right to recognition.
On 18 May 2026 a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court, in Bansal v. Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV, set aside the 2018 single-judge SEP infringement decree by Justice Manmohan on Philips' DVD-related Indian Patent IN 184753 and articulated, for the first time at the Division Bench level in India, the evidentiary baseline a Standard-Essential Patent holder must meet at trial. The DB held that essentiality is a fact requiring proof through claim-charts mapped to the standard and through cross-examinable witnesses; that Philips' right was exhausted under Section 107A(b) of the Patents Act 1970 because the DVD components had been put on the market in China by Philips' authorised licensees; and that comparable-licence evidence is required to discharge the FRAND-rate burden. The ruling resets the FRAND-evidence architecture for the Ericsson, Nokia, Dolby and Malikie actions still on foot.
On 15 July 2014 a two-judge Division Bench of the Bombay High Court (Mohit S. Shah, C.J., presiding, with M.S. Sanklecha, J.) affirmed India's first — and to date only successful — compulsory-licence grant under *Section 84* of the *Patents Act 1970*. The decision sustained the Controller's 9 March 2012 order granting Natco Pharma a compulsory licence over Bayer's IN 215758 (Sorafenib Tosylate, sold as Nexavar) on all three independent grounds under *Section 84(1)* — reasonable requirements of the public unmet, price not reasonably affordable, and patent not worked in India. The Special Leave Petition was dismissed on 12 December 2014 with the questions of law left open. The judgment, read with the subsequent rejections of the BDR Pharma (Dasatinib) and Lee Pharma (Saxagliptin) applications, defines the practical contours of Indian compulsory licensing in the post-TRIPS public-health architecture.
On 15 April 2011, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court — Justice R.V. Raveendran writing — supplied the first authoritative analytical framework for arbitrability under the 1996 Act. The judgment installed the in rem / in personam taxonomy, enumerated six classic non-arbitrable categories, and held that a suit for enforcement of a mortgage by sale under Section 67 of the Transfer of Property Act 1882 is non-arbitrable. Booz Allen is the foundational anchor on which Vidya Drolia's four-fold test and Cox & Kings's group-of-companies doctrine were later built.
On 2 November 2018, Pratibha M. Singh, J. of the Delhi High Court held that the luxury reseller darveys.com was not a passive intermediary under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act 2000 and could not claim the safe-harbour against trade-mark infringement. The judgment enumerated some twenty-six indicia of active involvement — paid membership, curated marketplace, control over which sellers could list, authenticity guarantees, logistics handling, non-disclosure of seller identities and use of the Louboutin name and Mr. Louboutin's image as meta-tags. A close reading of the active-versus-passive intermediary test under Section 79 read with Rule 3 of the Intermediary Guidelines Rules 2011, the post-judgment doctrinal arc through Amazon Seller v. Modicare and the Division Bench gloss on Amway v. 1MG.
On 10 April 2026, Justice Tushar Rao Gedela of the Delhi High Court granted an ex parte ad interim injunction restraining a Bhopal-based publisher from using 'The Pioneer' trademark and from copying the contents of the plaintiff's newspaper. The judgment, in CS(COMM) 338/2026, treats the defendant's conduct — following the revocation of a 2004 Memorandum of Understanding — as a composite trademark-and-copyright infringement under the Trade Marks Act, 1999 and the Copyright Act, 1957. A digest of the facts, the relief, and what the order tells practitioners about the interim-injunction architecture in newspaper IP matters.
On 22 May 2026, Justice Mini Pushkarna of the Delhi High Court held that the use of a registered trademark as a bidding keyword to trigger sponsored advertisements constitutes infringement under Section 29(6)(d) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 — and that Google could not, on the record before the Court, claim safe harbour under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000. The judgment, which awarded damages of ₹30 lakh in favour of Hindware, sets the operative position on keyword-advertising trademark infringement in India. A digest of the holding, the doctrinal logic, and the implications for platforms and advertisers.
On 9 December 2016, the Delhi High Court Division Bench — Pradeep Nandrajog, J. and Yogesh Khanna, J. — held that Section 52(1)(i) of the Copyright Act 1957, which permits reproduction of any work by a teacher or a pupil in the course of instruction, is to be read purposively and broadly and is not confined to physical classroom acts. Course-pack preparation by a university for its students falls within Section 52(1)(i) provided the inclusion is justified by the purpose of instruction. The DB articulated a fairness test rooted in the extent justified by purpose — qualitative and quantitative — and declined to transplant the US four-factor fair-use test. The suit was restored to the single judge for fact-trial; the publishers withdrew it on 9 March 2017.
On 29 March 2023 a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court, in Intex Technologies (India) Ltd v. Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, delivered the country's first authoritative appellate framework on standard-essential patents and FRAND licensing. The judgment by Justices Manmohan and Saurabh Banerjee dismissed Intex's appeal, allowed Ericsson's cross-appeal, doubled the royalty security ordered by the Single Judge, held that injunctions and pro-tem royalty deposits are available to SEP holders against unwilling licensees, ruled that parallel CCI proceedings do not oust Patent Act jurisdiction, and established the 'willing licensee' inquiry as the central test in Indian SEP litigation. A close reading of the Bench's reasoning, the two-way street it builds between SEP holders and implementers, and the bespoke Indian remedy of pro-tem security that now travels through Nokia v. OPPO, Ericsson v. Lava and the wider Delhi SEP docket.
The May 2026 cycle in Indian intellectual-property law has produced three doctrinal threads running in parallel — the Division Bench reset of the SEP-evidence architecture in Bansal v. Philips and the parallel pro-tem FRAND security in Malikie v. Xiaomi; the Delhi High Court DB's close-out of the Ilaiyaraaja-Saregama composer-rights line under the pre-1994 Copyright Act architecture; and the Calcutta High Court's first Indian engagement with the generative-AI/IP interface in Indiamart v. OpenAI. Read alongside Syngenta on agrochemical polymorphism and Section 3(d), Orient Electric on Designs Act anticipation discipline, Médecins Sans Frontières on trade-mark use in fictional film content, Indian Explosives on Section 12A pre-institution mediation in copyright suits, Communication Components Antenna on antenna-patent damages quantum, and Ars Steels on procedural fairness at the Designs Controller, the cycle discloses the operational architecture within which Indian IP practice now operates.
On 10 June 2020 Justice C. Saravanan of the Madras High Court Original Side, in ITC Limited v. Nestle India Ltd, dismissed ITC's passing-off action against Nestle's use of 'Magical Masala' on Maggi noodle packaging. The judgment holds that 'Magic Masala' and 'Magical Masala' are laudatory and descriptive — 'magic' and 'magical' are common laudatory epithets, 'masala' is a generic flavour descriptor — and that neither party used these terms as trade-mark identifiers. The dominant marks were 'Sunfeast Yippee!' and 'Maggi'; the disputed phrases functioned as flavour-variant descriptors. A close reading of the descriptive-use vs trade-mark-use distinction, the post-Marico v. Agro Tech architecture for laudatory marks, and what the judgment tells brand owners about packaging hierarchy.
On 23 December 2016 a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court, in MySpace Inc v. Super Cassettes Industries Ltd, set aside Justice Manmohan Singh's blanket 2011 injunction and worked out the first coherent Indian framework for intermediary safe-harbour in copyright. The DB held that the proviso to Section 81 of the IT Act does not preclude an intermediary from invoking the Section 79 safe-harbour in copyright suits; that 'actual knowledge' under Section 51(a)(ii) of the Copyright Act requires knowledge of specific infringing material at a specific URL; that takedown notices must identify works with specificity, location and ownership; and that no general proactive monitoring obligation can be imposed.
On 1 April 2013 a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court dismissed Novartis's decade-long campaign for an Indian patent on the beta-crystalline form of Imatinib Mesylate — sold abroad as Glivec (and as Gleevec in the United States). The Court read *Section 3(d)* of the *Patents Act 1970* as a heightened patentability filter for incremental pharmaceutical claims, glossed 'efficacy' as 'therapeutic efficacy', and held that improvements in bioavailability, hygroscopicity and flow are physico-chemical attributes that do not, without more, cross the s.3(d) threshold. The judgment supplied the doctrinal architecture for India's post-TRIPS anti-evergreening regime and remains the anchoring authority on incremental-pharma patentability.
On 5 November 2024, a nine-judge Constitution Bench held by 7:2 that not every private property qualifies as a 'material resource of the community' under Article 39(b) of the Constitution — and overruled Sanjeev Coke Manufacturing Co. v. Bharat Coking Coal (1983), which had adopted Justice Krishna Iyer's expansive minority position in Ranganatha Reddy as the rule. The judgment recalibrates the relationship between private property and the State's redistributive power, and sets out a multi-factor inquiry for what falls within Article 39(b)'s reach.
On 27 November 2015 a two-judge Division Bench of the Delhi High Court (Pradeep Nandrajog, J. and Mukta Gupta, J.) delivered the long-awaited decision on Roche's IN 196774 — the Indian patent on Erlotinib Hydrochloride, sold as Tarceva — and Cipla's accused generic Erlocip. The Bench held the suit patent valid, held Cipla's Polymorph B product within the scope of the compound patent (the failure of Roche's downstream Polymorph B claim under *Section 3(d)* did not narrow the parent compound patent), declined a permanent injunction because the patent was within months of expiry, and — most consequentially — held that *Section 3(d)* of the *Patents Act 1970* is a patent-eligibility provision operating at the grant stage and is not available as a defence at the infringement stage. The decision imposed ₹5 lakh in costs on Cipla and remanded for an accounts inquiry. The Special Leave Petition was admitted in 2016 and withdrawn under settlement in June 2017; the Delhi Bench's framework remains good law.
On 10 February 1970, an eleven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court struck down the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1969 by a ten-to-one majority. Justice J.C. Shah's majority judgment did three doctrinally distinct things: it read Article 31(2) compensation as a 'just equivalent', it replaced the object/subject test with an effect test, and it overruled A.K. Gopalan's silo theory of fundamental rights — the analytical move that, eight years later, made the golden triangle of Maneka Gandhi possible.
On 6 May 2004, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India — Ruma Pal, J. and P. Venkatarama Reddi, J. — held that a domain name is more than a mere internet address; it functions as a business identifier capable of trade-mark protection under the Trade Marks Act 1999 and the common-law tort of passing off. The Court reversed the Karnataka High Court Division Bench and restored the City Civil Judge Bangalore's interim injunction against Siffynet Solutions in favour of Satyam Infoway. A close reading of the territoriality of cyberspace question, the classical trinity test applied to coined word marks, the dicta on the UDRP and ICANN architecture and the foundational role of the judgment in the .in INDRP framework.
On 18 May 2026, a two-judge bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Augustine George Masih clarified that Section 6(5) of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 — which protects pre-2004 partitions from the retroactive coparcenary amendment of 2005 — does not create a jurisdictional bar to a partition suit and does not extinguish the independent statutory succession rights of Class I heirs under Section 8. The judgment reinforces the doctrinal architecture that Vineeta Sharma v. Rakesh Sharma (2020) had established and clarifies the relationship between the coparcenary line and the intestate succession line under the Hindu Succession Act.
On 14 December 2017 a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court, in Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha v. M/S Prius Auto Industries Ltd, affirmed the Delhi High Court Division Bench's reversal of an ad-interim injunction in favour of Toyota and dismissed Toyota's appeal. The judgment, authored by Justice Ranjan Gogoi for himself and Justice Navin Sinha, holds that trans-border reputation under Indian passing-off law is governed by the territoriality principle — a foreign mark must demonstrate substantial spillover goodwill in Indian territory at the relevant date, here April 2001, and the classical trinity of goodwill, misrepresentation and damage applies even where the mark is globally famous. The judgment reads down Whirlpool (1996) and Milmet Oftho (2004) without overruling them and aligns Indian law with the English Starbucks (HK) approach. A close reading of the judgment's procedural posture, the territoriality holding, and what practitioners should plead in trans-border reputation suits.
On 14 December 2020 a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, in Vidya Drolia v. Durga Trading Corporation, restated and tightened the in rem / in personam taxonomy of Booz Allen into a structured four-fold test for non-arbitrability, held tenancy disputes under the Transfer of Property Act arbitrable, overruled N. Radhakrishnan on the arbitrability of fraud, and recalibrated the standard of judicial review under Sections 8 and 11 in favour of competence-competence. A close reading of Justice Sanjiv Khanna's lead judgment, Justice Ramana's concurring opinion, the doctrinal architecture and what the bar should plead in the post-Vidya Drolia world.
Across a tightly-packed cluster of orders in early 2026 — Swami Ramdev in February, Shashi Tharoor and Sunil Gavaskar in May, and most recently Naga Chaitanya on 29 May — the Delhi High Court has developed a consistent doctrinal architecture for protecting personality rights against AI-generated deepfakes. A digest of the lead Naga Chaitanya order before Justice Jyoti Singh, the dynamic-injunction device that runs through the cluster, the doctrinal continuity with the earlier Varun Dhawan disposition, and the limiting principles the Court has begun to articulate.
Justice Jyoti Singh of the Delhi High Court has indicated that the court will pass an interim order protecting Bollywood actor Varun Dhawan's personality rights against unauthorised exploitation — including AI-generated deepfakes, morphed images, pornographic content, and unauthorised merchandise. The disposition is part of a developing 2026 line of Delhi High Court personality-rights jurisprudence covering Hrithik Roshan, Ajay Devgn and others. A digest of the doctrinal architecture, the AI dimension, and what the framework now looks like.