Legal Pulse

"Devender Kumar Sikri, a former Gujarat cadre Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, was on Thursday appointed as chairman of fair-trade regulator Competition Commission of India (CCI),” reported the PTI and others.

The former secretary in the ministry of women and child development, registrar general of census, and collector of Rajkot and Jamnagar, is set to be chairman of the CCI for two-and-a-half years.

He succeeds Ashok Chawla, whose term ended on 7 January. Reportedly 100 bureaucrats, economists and six sitting CCI members applied for the post.

Hot on the heels of Salman Khan’s liberation, criminal lawyer Vagisha Kochar explains how drink driving laws work in reality.

Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas and Gopal Subramanium represented Lafarge arguing on behalf of 10 other cement companies before the Competition Appellate Tribunal (Compat) and succeeding in getting the Rs 6,300 crore ($1.15bn) Competition Commission of India (CCI) penalty overturned.

Vodafone has become a shorthand for Indian tax troubles, but in the last year or so, it has won several important high court decisions (though not for lack of resistance from government lawyers).

India slipped from being one of the five countries with the highest number of International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) arbitrations in 2012, to bringing the 10^th highest number of ICC arbitrations in 2014, according to data from the International Chamber of Commerce, where India lost its four-year lead on China after 2012.

Around 100 bureaucrats, economists and the six members of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) have applied to become CCI chairman, reported The Indian Express, as incumbent chairman Ashok Chawla is due to retire on 7 January 2016.

The Express reported that “urban development secretary Madhusudan Prasad; Bimal Julka, who retired as I&B secretary in August 2015; Subir Gokarn, former RBI Deputy Governor and Harsha Vardhana Singh, former deputy director general at WTO” are among the applicants, alongside current CCI members SL Bunker, UC Nahta, MS Sahoo, Sudhir Mital, Augustine Peter and GP Mittal.

The CCI post has seen twice the 50 applicants seen for the post of Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) chairman, where UK Sinha is set to step down on 17 February 2016.

Former commerce secretary and legal sector liberalisation architect Rajeev Kher assumed office as member at the Competition Appellate Tribunal (COMPAT) yesterday, according to its website, filling one of the two empty member posts which were last occupied at the tribunal in May 2014 and August 2014.

When the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) published the Draft National Encryption Policy last week, it probably did not expect to have it withdrawn in just a few days' time. After facing a seething attack from all quarters, the IT Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, announced that the draft policy was not the government’s final view, and a revised policy would soon be published.

Hengeler Mueller advised auto ancilliaries company Varroc Engineering India on the enforcement of an arbitration award it won at the International Court of Arbitration (ICC) in Singapore.

Hengeler Mueller disputes partner Carsten van de Sande  and associates Johanna Peters, Liliane Djahangir and Abhijit Narayan acted for Varroc India which is part of the multinational Varroc Group.

The Higher Regional Court Stuttgart ruled that the Singaporean ICC award is recognised and enforceable in Germany, for the Indian company.

App-based taxi operator Ola’s parent company ANI Technologies has won a favourable majority decision from the Competition Commission of India (CCI), which declined to pass any interim order around the allegation that the company was involved in illegal predatory pricing.

On Monday the Economic Times reported that the director general (DG) of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has submitted a damning report of Google, finding a prima facie case that Google has abused its dominant position.

The central government has been called by the Delhi high court to show how it is ensuring that patentees commercially work their patents, on the public interest litigation (PIL) of the Infosys Foundation’s intellectual property rights prize awardee Prof Shamnad Basheer, reported Spicy IP.

Axon Partners founder Abhimanyu Bhandari, and advocate Sai Vinod acted for Basheer before a bench of chief justice G Rohini and justice Jayant Nath.

The Patent Act and Rules require that anyone who has been granted a patent must annually disclose as to how far and to what extent they have commercially worked their patent, so as to help demonstrate how the public is benefitting from their patents. These are India’s “patent working norms”.

According to Basheer’s PIL, “35 per cent of the patentees [failed] to disclose their patent working status during 2009 to 2012” and the government “never initiated action against any of the errant patentees”.

Basheer adds: “What makes this government inaction even more egregious is the fact that the blatant non-compliance was already brought to the notice of the government four years ago through a similar investigation conducted by the Petitioner in a public report titled ‘The ‘Non-Working’ of the Patent Office ‘Working’ Requirement!’.”

The PIL will be heard next on 17 November. Basheer’s other PIL, the Supreme Court challenge to the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT), will be heard on Friday.

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas has won a favourable landmark report from the Competition Commission of India (CCI) director general for its client Bharat Matrinmony and an NGO against internet giant Google, which was represented by AZB & Partners and Economic Laws Practice (ELP).

Former Clifford Chance foreign legal consultant Pranav Mago is now heading the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) South Asia. Mago took over the role on 17 August from Scheherazade Dubash.

Debate around the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) has often been emotive rather than dispassionate, with the discourse ranging from senior lawyer Ram Jethmalani calling it an “evil absurdity” to attorney general Mukul Rohatgi pointing to judges who habitually turned up late in court as a reason to ditch the existing collegium system to select judges.

German auto maker Audi was restrained, ex parte, by the Delhi high court from using the trademark “TT” on its leather goods, after Delhi-based garment maker TT Textiles sued it for using its “multi-product global brand” trademark, reported Indian Express.

TT Textiles, of the TT vests fame, filed a trademark infringement suit for damages of Rs 25 lakh against Audi for “selling car and the related accessories with the mark ‘TT’ clandestinely in Delhi.” Advocate Shilpa Jain was acting for TT in the high court.

TT Textiles has used the trademark TT since 1968 and now has 87 registrations in 65 countries, while its turnover in the financial year 2013 to 2014 was Rs 754 crore, according to the order.

Justice Najmi Waziri ordered:

“This Court is of the view that the plaintiffs have made out a prima facie case for an ex parte ad interim injunction and in case such an order is not passed at this stage, irreparable prejudice would be caused to them. The balance of convenience too lies in favour of the plaintiffs.”

The case will be heard next on 2 November.