Publisher Lexis Nexis has obtained an injunction in the Lucknow District Court against Eastern Book Company (EBC) to prevent it from publicising that it was granted an interim injunction in the same court last month against Lexis Nexis for alleged plagiarism.

EBC, which is the publisher of Supreme Court Cases (SCC), was granted an interim injunction in the Lucknow district court against Reed Elsevier India, which owns legal case database providers Lexis Nexis and Butterworths, as well as Thomson Reuters, which publishes Westlaw and Indlaw.

EBC then circulated two press releases publicising the two interim injunctions, as reported by Legally India and the SpicyIP blog at the time.

On 3 October, Lexis Nexis obtained an injunction from the Lucknow District Court that stated, according to a translation of the Hindi order supplied to Legally India by the company:

Case called out. Learned Counsel for both the parties are present. Today this application is moved on behalf of the Defendant to the extent that he (the Defendant) was restrained by the order dated on 22-09-2012 on an ad-interim injunction application moved by the plaintiff, not to sell distribute or publish by any other means in reference to Supreme Court Cases, and also not to violate the copyright in reference to their law reports. Now the plaintiff is trying to publish news of the said order on various print or electronic media. Therefore he may be restrained to do so.

Learned Counsel for the plaintiff Sri Sudeep Seth is present. He is directed to instruct his client that in compliance of the interim injunction order, no matter be published through print or electronic media.

In this case, the date 22-10-2012 is already fixed for hearing on interim injunction application. But I am notified that learned Sr. Counsel Prashant Chandra will not be present on that day. Both the learned counsel agree that the date to be fixed 18-10-2012 instead of 22-10-2012.

This prayer is allowed. Put up on 18-10-2012 for hearing of interim injunction application instead of already date fixed 22-10-2012. On that day, the application moved by the Defendant will also be heard. The plaintiff may file any objection, if any, before date fixed.

Sd.

District Judge

Lucknow.

Sumeet Malik, EBC director and associate editor of SCC, declined to comment, although it is understood that the company would try to appeal the counter-injunction.