{"id":388772,"date":"2026-06-29T14:00:59","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T08:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/?p=388772"},"modified":"2026-06-29T13:07:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T07:37:07","slug":"rule-45-trade-marks-rules-2017-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/2026\/06\/29\/rule-45-trade-marks-rules-2017-analysis\/","title":{"rendered":"Servant or Tyrant? The Rule 45 Deadlock That Only the Supreme Court Can Break"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Trade Marks Rules, 2017<\/a> changed the language. Gone was the express discretion language of the old Rule 50 (2002 Rules) and Rule 53 (1959 Rules).<\/span><\/p>\n

When High Courts disagree on a daily-use procedural rule, every trade mark practitioner loses<\/p>\n

Black Diamond Motors (P) Ltd.<\/span> v. Registrar of Trade Marks<\/span><\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

There is a rule in the Trade Marks Rules, 2017<\/a> (2017 Rules)<\/span> that every trade mark practitioner in India deals with, sometimes daily. Rule 45(1) gives an opponent in opposition proceedings, and by cross-reference under Rule 98, a rectification applicant in rectification proceedings, exactly two months from the date of service of the counterstatement to file an affidavit of evidence. Miss that window, and Rule 45(2) says you are deemed to have abandoned your opposition. The words are plain. The consequences, on paper, are fatal.<\/p>\n

Yet, as of today, whether those words are actually fatal depends entirely on which High Court you ask and, critically, which Registrar’s office your proceedings are filed in. That is a state of affairs that should concern every IP practitioner, every brand owner, and every student of administrative law.<\/p>\n

A rule, three High Courts, three answers<\/p>\n

The starting point is the unanimous position under the older rules. Every court that examined the corresponding provision under the Trade Marks Rules, 1959 (1959 Rules) and the Trade Marks Rules, 2002<\/a> (2002 Rules)<\/span> held the deadline to be directory — a target to aim for, not a guillotine. The Registrar had discretion. Delay was curable on terms.<\/p>\n

The 2017 Rules<\/a> changed the language. Gone was the express discretion language of the old Rule 50 (2002 Rules)<\/a> and Rule 53 (1959 Rules). In came a starker, terser formulation. This gave rise to the argument, first accepted by the Delhi High Court, that Parliament had consciously chosen to make the 2017 deadline mandatory. The Delhi High Court’s Single Judge in Sun Pharma Laboratories Ltd.<\/span> v. Dabur India Ltd.<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span>2<\/sup><\/a> and a Division Bench in Mahesh Gupta<\/span> v. Registrar of Trademarks<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span>3<\/sup><\/a> both held that the two-month deadline is a hard, mandatory cut-off. Miss it, and your opposition or rectification application is dead. No power, not even the Registrar’s general extension power under Section 131<\/a><\/span>, Trade Marks Act, 1999<\/a>, can revive it. Two learned Single Judges of the Madras High Court endorsed this view.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then came the Bombay High Court. In Black Diamond Motors (P) Ltd.<\/span> v. Registrar of Trade Marks<\/span><\/span>4<\/sup><\/a>, Justice Somasekhar Sundaresan, after a thorough survey of the authorities on both sides, held the opposite: Rule 45’s two-month deadline is directory, not mandatory. An evidence affidavit filed over three years late was held to be validly brought on record. The petition was dismissed. The Registrar’s order condoning the delay was affirmed.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Gujarat High Court, in Wyeth Holdings Corpn.<\/span> v. Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span>5<\/sup><\/a>, and the erstwhile<\/span><\/span> <\/span>Intellectual Property Appellate Board<\/span><\/span><\/span> (IPAB), in Sahil Kohli<\/span> v. Registrar of Trade Mark<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span>6<\/sup><\/a>, had already staked out the directory position. The Bombay High Court has now joined that camp and done so with detailed reasoning.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

So, the scoreboard reads: Delhi and Madras say mandatory; Bombay and Gujarat say directory. These are courts of coordinate jurisdiction. No one is bound by any other. The law of the land, on a question that arises in virtually every contested trade mark proceeding, is currently different depending on geography.<\/p>\n

Why the Bombay High Court disagreed and why it matters<\/p>\n

Justice Sundaresan’s core reasoning is worth understanding, not merely noting, because it exposes a significant gap in the Delhi High Court’s analysis. The Bombay High Court pointed out that neither Sun Pharma case<\/span><\/a>7<\/sup><\/a> nor Mahesh Gupta case<\/span><\/a>8<\/sup><\/a> addressed Rule 48 of the 2017 Rules<\/a>, the provision that grants the Registrar an open-ended discretion to allow further evidence at any time on such terms as to costs or otherwise as he may think fit. This omission is critical.<\/p>\n

If Rule 45 is truly mandatory and if missing its deadline permanently extinguishes the right to file evidence, then Rule 47 (which allows the very same party to file reply evidence) and Rule 48 (which allows the Registrar to admit any further evidence) become pointless in that party’s hands. A rule that kills your right to file at Rule 45 cannot simultaneously revive you at Rules 47 and 48. Courts do not read statutes to produce this kind of internal incoherence. As the Bombay High Court noted, what is simply impermissible under Rule 45 but practically permissible under Rules 47 and 48 cannot logically make Rule 45 mandatory. The scheme of the Rules must be read as a whole.<\/p>\n

The Court also took on the deemed abandonment argument head-on. Rule 45(2) says the opposition is deemed abandoned if no action is taken. The Bombay High Court held that a deeming fiction cannot travel beyond the purpose for which it was created. Its purpose is to record that the evidence deadline was missed, not to nullify the entire substantive notice of opposition or rectification application, which flows from a statutory right under Section 21 or Section 57 of the Act. To read it otherwise would mean that a rectification application is extinguished merely because an affidavit was not filed on time, regardless of the merits of the underlying challenge to the registration. That, as the Court put it, would be truly absurd and in direct conflict with the substantive rights under the Act.<\/p>\n

On Section 131<\/a>, the Registrar’s time-extension power, the Bombay High Court drew a sharp and important distinction between a timeline that has the force of law as subordinate legislation (which Rule 45 undoubtedly does) and a timeline that is expressly provided in the Act (which Rule 45 is not). Section 131<\/a> excludes only the latter from the Registrar’s extension powers. Significantly, Rule 109(1), 2017 Rules<\/a> itself lists the timelines excluded from extension under Section 131<\/a> and Rule 45 does not figure in that list. The drafters of the 2017 Rules<\/a> thus implicitly confirmed that Rule 45’s deadline is extendable. The Court also drew on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Rohan Builders (India) (P) Ltd.<\/span> v. Berger Paints (India) Ltd.<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span>9<\/sup><\/a>, in the context of an identically structured provision under the Arbitration Act, for the principle that courts cannot judicially legislate a bar on limitation that the legislature itself chose not to impose.<\/span><\/p>\n

The crux: Which court do you follow?<\/p>\n

This is the question the article must answer honestly and the honest answer is: It depends on where your proceedings are, and that is an unsatisfactory answer for a rule that governs the entire country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

Court\/Forum<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

View on Rule 45<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Section 131<\/a> Applies?<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Key Reasoning<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Delhi HC (Single Judge and Division Bench)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Mandatory<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

No<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

2017 Rules<\/a> represent conscious departure from prior Directory regime.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Madras HC (two Single Judges)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Mandatory<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

No<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Endorsing Delhi HC view.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Gujarat HC<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Directory<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Yes<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Scheme of rules; Registrar has inherent discretion.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

IPAB<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Directory<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Yes<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Continuous march of law from 1959 Rules.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Bombay HC (June 17, 2026)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Directory<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Yes; Rule 45 not in excluded list under Rule 109(1)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Rule 48 renders mandatory reading internally incoherent; deeming fiction limited to evidence deadline, not proceedings.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Practically, the answer is governed by geography. The Mumbai Registrar’s office sits within the supervisory jurisdiction of the Bombay High Court. Proceedings before the Mumbai Registrar are now governed by the Directory view. Practitioners filing oppositions or rectifications at Mumbai, or advising clients whose proceedings are there, can seek condonation of a missed Rule 45 deadline by filing an application under Section 131<\/a> along with the evidence affidavit, even after substantial delay, provided sufficient cause is shown. Costs may be imposed but the door is open.<\/p>\n

Proceedings before the Delhi Registrar, however, fall within the supervisory jurisdiction of the Delhi High Court. There, both the Single Judge and the Division Bench have spoken, in the same year 2024, that Rule 45 is mandatory, Section 131<\/a> does not apply to it, and a missed deadline is a dead end. The Madras High Court has endorsed this position, affecting proceedings at the Chennai Registrar’s office.<\/p>\n

The Gujarat High Court’s directory view, from 2006, covers proceedings at the Ahmedabad Registrar’s office, though that judgment predates the 2017 Rules<\/a> and its applicability to the new regime is not beyond debate.<\/p>\n

What this means, in practice, is that the right to revive a missed evidence affidavit is a function of postal address, not of law. That is the very definition of unequal justice, and it is not the fault of any one court. It is the natural consequence of the Supreme Court not yet having spoken on the question.<\/p>\n

What should practitioners do now?<\/p>\n

Until the Supreme Court resolves this conflict, the advice must be jurisdiction-specific. Before the Mumbai Registrar, the Bombay High Court’s judgment provides a clear basis to seek condonation under Section 131<\/a> for any missed Rule 45 deadline. The application, along with the evidence affidavit, may be filed at any stage, supported by an affidavit showing sufficient cause. Before the Delhi and Madras Registrars, strict compliance with Rule 45 remains the only safe course; any delay, however small, carries the risk of the Delhi High Court’s mandatory rule being applied. In all jurisdictions, Rule 48, the Registrar’s residual power to allow further evidence on terms, remains a fallback worth exploring, though its interaction with a mandatory Rule 45 in the Delhi view has not been conclusively settled.<\/p>\n

The deeper point, however, is this: The Bombay High Court has built a textual and structural case that is difficult to ignore. The argument from Rule 48, that a mandatory Rule 45 renders Rules 47 and 48 otiose, is not merely clever lawyering; it is a fundamental principle of statutory construction. The argument that Rule 45 is missing from Rule 109(1)’s list of excluded timelines is equally compelling. The Supreme Court, when it takes up this question, will have to grapple with these arguments seriously.<\/p>\n

Until that day, the maxim from Kailash<\/span> v. Nanhku<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span>10<\/sup><\/a> remains the most honest summary of where the law should go: Processual law is not to be a tyrant but a servant, not an obstruction but an aid to justice. In Bombay, that is already the law. In Delhi, for now, the clock ticks like a guillotine.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

*Partner, Vera Lex.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

1.<\/a> 2026 SCC OnLine Bom 4018.<\/p>\n

2.<\/a> 2024 SCC OnLine Del 813<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

3.<\/a> 2024 SCC OnLine Del 1750<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

4.<\/a> 2026 SCC OnLine Bom 4018.<\/p>\n

5.<\/a> 2006 SCC OnLine Guj 620<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

6.<\/a> 2018 SCC OnLine IPAB 55<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

7.<\/a> Sun Pharma Laboratories Ltd.<\/span> v. Dabur India Ltd.<\/span><\/a><\/span>, 2024 SCC OnLine Del 813<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

8.<\/a> Mahesh Gupta<\/span> v. Registrar of Trademarks<\/span><\/a>, 2024 SCC OnLine Del 1750<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

9.<\/a> (2025) 10 SCC 802<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

10.<\/a> (2005) 4 SCC 480<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Sidhartha Das*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67011,"featured_media":388773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42503,1191],"tags":[108330,108329,108333,108328,108331,108332],"class_list":["post-388772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legal-analysis","category-op-ed","tag-black-diamond-motors-registrar-of-trade-marks-rule-45","tag-mandatory-vs-directory-rule-45-trademark-opposition","tag-rule-45-opposition-proceedings-high-court-conflict","tag-rule-45-trade-marks-rules-2017-analysis","tag-section-131-trade-marks-act-extension-of-time","tag-trade-marks-rules-evidence-affidavit-deadline-india"],"yoast_head":"\nRule 45 Trade Marks Rules: Mandatory or Directory? | SCC Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Analysis of the Rule 45 conflict on timelines for trade mark opposition proceedings in India.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/2026\/06\/29\/rule-45-trade-marks-rules-2017-analysis\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Servant or Tyrant? 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