The Madras High Court (CJ S.A. Dharmadhikari and G. Arul Murugan J.) dismissed a PIL seeking to restrict candidature in Scheduled-Caste-reserved constituencies to those professing Hinduism, Sikhism or Buddhism. The Court held that Returning Officers already possess summary powers to reject fraudulent nominations, and that any grievance over a false declaration must be raised through an election petition, not a writ that micro-manages an election in motion.
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 February 2026 a single judge of the Madras High Court, hearing a criminal revision arising from the financing of the Rajinikanth film Kochadaiyaan, affirmed a Section 138 conviction yet moulded the relief into a monetary direction rather than imprisonment. A digest of the facts, the compensatory characterisation of cheque-bounce law, and what it means for sentencing under the Negotiable Instruments Act.
On 28 April 2026, a Madras HC Division Bench struck down Tamil Nadu G.O. Ms. No. 18 of 13 March 2026 restricting maternity leave for a third pregnancy to 12 weeks, operationalising K. Umadevi (2025) and anchoring maternity benefit as a facet of Article 21 reproductive autonomy.
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.