Supreme Court: In a petition challenging the Allahabad High Court’s judgment upholding interim protection in favour of Jubilant Generics Ltd. (Jubilant) in a dispute over alleged misuse of pharmaceutical product dossiers, the Division Bench comprising J.B. Pardiwala and K.V. Viswanathan, JJ., stated that the High Court had not committed any error, legal or otherwise. The Court further clarified that the trial court must decide the suit independently, without being influenced by the High Court’s observations.
Background
The dispute arose from a commercial suit filed by Jubilant, alleging unauthorized use of its proprietary product dossiers related to pharmaceutical formulations. Jubilant claimed these dossiers contained sensitive scientific, regulatory, and technical data developed through significant effort and investment, and were protected as original works under the Copyright Act, 1957.
Under non-exclusive licence, supply, and distribution agreements, Jubilant allowed Jamp Pharma Corporation, Canada to use these dossiers for registering, manufacturing, marketing, distributing, and selling products in Canada. Jubilant alleged that, in violation of this contractual framework, the dossiers were transferred to Indian entities and used to manufacture pharmaceutical products in India. This amounted to copyright infringement, breach of confidentiality, and misappropriation of trade secrets.
The Commercial Court granted interim protection, restraining the defendants from reproducing or using Jubilant’s copyrighted product dossiers and from sharing its confidential information. The High Court later observed that Jubilant had established a strong prima facie case based on its ownership of the original product dossiers for pharmaceutical drugs and accordingly upheld the interim order.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court stated that the High Court had not committed any error, legal or otherwise, in delivering the impugned judgment and order, and further clarified that the trial court must decide the suit independently, without being influenced by any observations made in the High Court’s judgment. The Court also noted that the ongoing dispute between the parties had resulted in the filing of FIR and stated that the petitioner is free to pursue appropriate legal remedies before the proper forum, in accordance with law, to seek quashing of the FIRs.
[Japan India Pharmaceuticals (P) Ltd. v. Jubilant Generics Ltd., 2026 SCC OnLine SC 449, decided on 16-3-2026]
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Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Petitioner: Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas Aor, AOR; Mukul Rohatgi, Sr. Adv.; Ankoosh Mehta, Adv.; Vikash Kumar Jha, Adv.; Mansi Chheda, Adv.; Shivam Tiwari, Adv.; Ena Kapur, Adv.; Aakash Agarwal, Adv.
For the Respondents: Abhinav Mukherjee, Sr. Adv.; Kheyali Singh, AOR; Rohit Jain, Adv. ; Nitin Sharma, Adv.; Angad Makkar, Adv.; Abhay Aren, Adv.; Amit Sibal, Sr. Adv.; Nishit Agrawal, AOR; Ramayni Sood, Adv.; Sakshi Dhingra, Adv.; Ankit Honda, Adv.; Kanishka Mittal, Adv.; Deepti Rathi, Adv.; L Zafeer Ahmad BF, AOR; Kushagra Sharma, Adv.; Purvi Mathur, Adv.; Abhimanyu Singh, Adv.
