Huntsman International (India) Private Limited v. Abiss Textile Solutions Private Limited & Ors

RAJIV SAHAI ENDLAW, J. FEBRUARY 21, 2018 'pp'

* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI % Date of decision: 21st February, 2018. + CS(COMM) 619/2016 , IA No.6583/2016 (u/O XXXIX R-1&2 CPC), IA No.8693/2016 (u/O VII R-11 CPC), IA No.8696/2016 (u/O XXXIX R-2A CPC) & IA No.13379/2016 (u/O XXXIX R- 2A CPC) HUNTSMAN INTERNATIONAL (INDIA) PRIVATE LIMITED ..... Plaintiff Through: Mr. Sudhir Chandra, Sr. Adv. Mr. Rajiv Nayar, Sr. Adv., Mr. Darpan Wadhwa, Sr. Adv. with Mr. Shravan Sahay, Mr. Nakul Gandhi, Mr. Anupam Prakash Ms. Aditi Mohan , Mr. Toyesh, Mr. V.K. Rao and Mr. Rajat Wadhwa, Versus ABISS TEXTILE SOLUTIONS PRIVATE LIMITED & ORS ..... Defendants Through: Mr. Dayan Krishnan, Sr. Adv. with Mr. Soumya Kumar, Mr. Sanyam Khetarpal, Mr. Sanjeevi, Mr. Kanwal Chaudhary, Mr. Armaan Grover, Advs. for D-1 to 4. Mr. Roshan Santhalia, Adv. for D- 5,6,8,9,10,11,12,13 and 15. Mr. Siddharth Khattar, Mr. Adil Khan and Mr. Vikas Sharma, Advs. for D-13. Mr. Sachin Gupta and Ms. Surbhi Grover, Advs. for D-14. CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RAJIV SAHAI ENDLAW 1. The plaintiff has instituted this suit against as many as fifteen defendants, namely (i) Abiss Textile Solutions Private Limited; (ii) Shree Pushkar Chemicals & Fertilisers Limited; (iii) Gautam Gopikishan Makharia; (iv) Puneet Gopikishan Makharia; (v) Ajay Kanwar; (vi) Biswaranjan Mukherjee; (vii) Syed Mohammad Ismail; (viii) Satin Raina; (ix) Manoj Mehta; (x) Tirtha Ghosh; (xi) Sunil Kondre; (xii) Sunil Patil; (xiii) Sumit Sethi; (xiv) Gaurav Ahuja; and, (xv) Viney Pandita, for the reliefs of (a) permanent injunction restraining disclosure and use of confidential and proprietary information of the plaintiff including for manufacturing, marketing and selling any product as being manufactured by the plaintiff; (b) mandatory injunction directing the defendants to reveal the particulars of the third parties to whom the defendants have parted with or revealed the confidential information of the plaintiff; (c) mandatory injunction directing the defendants to return to the plaintiff all such confidential and proprietary information; (d) mandatory injunction directing the defendants to destroy confidential and proprietary information of the plaintiff in their possession which is incapable of being returned to the plaintiff; (e) restraining the defendants from manufacturing the dyes; and (f) recovery of Rs.3,00,00,000/- for causing wrongful loss to the plaintiff. 2. This suit came up before this Court first on 24th May, 2016, when while issuing summons thereof and notice of the application for interim relief and issuing commission to visit the premises of the defendants to seize the infringing goods, it was inter alia ordered as under:- "4. The case of the plaintiff is that the plaintiff is a market leader and is engaged in the business of producing colour dies for textiles. Defendant No.2 has been a supplier of raw materials to the plaintiff, of which the defendants No.3 & 4 are the partners. 5. The further case of the plaintiff is that defendants No.2,3 & 4 entered into a collaboration agreement with the plaintiff so as to develop certain products and entered into confidentiality agreement in respect of the information derived by them under the collaboration agreement. Defendants No.5 to 15 are the ex-employees of plaintiff. 6. The case of the plaintiff is that on account of collusion between defendants No.2&3 on the one hand, and defendants No.5 to 15 on the other hand, confidential and proprietary information of the plaintiff in relation to its technology, know-how and trade secrets have been passed on unauthorisedly by defendant No.5 to 15 to defendant No.1, which has been set up as an entity to compete with the plaintiff by exploiting the said confidential information. In this regard, the plaintiff has placed on record a large number of documents, including e-mail communications exchanged inter se the defendants. 7. Learned senior counsel for the plaintiff points out that the defendants are planning to launch their products developed by