Plaintiff Alleging Breach Of Confidentiality Must Produce Confidential Info Before Court In Sealed Cover: Bombay High Court

“...the method adopted before this Court of providing such information in a sealed cover with material particulars is mandatory in terms of law laid down by this Court...”

Justice Manish Pitale observed that the High Court cannot verify the allegations of breach of confidentiality without perusing the confidential information.

“There has to be clear-cut, specific description and data with the Court pertaining to the information in which the plaintiff claims confidentiality. In the absence of such clear-cut information and material, furnished by the plaintiff before the Court, there would be no basis for examining the allegations levelled against the defendants.”

The court vacated its ex-parte interim order in favour of Rochem Separation Systems in a copyright infringement suit against Nirtech Private Limited.

The plaintiff and defendant companies are competitors in the field of water purification. A former Deputy Sales Manager who worked at Rochem for eight years is the Promoter of Nirtech and a former General Manager who worked at Rochem for twenty years is a Director of Nirtech.

The plaintiff claimed that it has developed proprietary technology for water purification solutions as well as effluent treatment systems for several industries including food and beverages, steel, pharmaceutical, automobile etc.

The plaintiff alleged that the two former employees disclosed an artistic work i.e., an engineering drawing of “connection flanges” for wastewater treatment systems to Nirtech. It claimed that these flanges are not available in the market.

The plaintiff, alleging that the former employees committed breach of contract, breach of confidence as well as copyright infringement, filed the copyright infringement suit against them and Nirtech.

On December 12, 2022, Justice Pitale held that a strong prima facie case exists and granted ex-parte interim relief to the plaintiff directing the defendants to handover all electronic devices and cloud accounts with passwords.

The plaintiff filed the present interim application seeking confirmation of the court’s ex-parte interim order while the defendants sought vacation of the ex-parte order.

The court noted that the plaintiff sought confidentiality in documents concerning products, research and development, manufacturing, trade secrets, contracts, operations, technical drawings, inventions, discoveries, etc., without providing details. The ex-parte interim order could not have been passed in such a wide manner, the court said.

The defendants told the court that the connection flanges form part of a patent issued in 1983 in USA and the drawings were in public domain for a long period of time. The defendant submitted that patent has expired and the connection flanges form part of various products concerning water purification technology.

The court opined that prima facie, plaintiff’s drawing is similar to the drawings pertaining to the expired patent. Further, the plaintiff should not have suppressed information about the expired patent while seeking ex-parte relief, the court held.

The court took note of various previous cases and held that the plaintiff should have complied with the method of providing confidential information in a sealed cover with material particulars as it is mandatory in law.

Thus, the court held that the plaintiff failed to make out a prima facie case regarding copyright infringement of its drawing as such drawings have in public domain for a long period of time.

The court said that it could not support the breach of defendant’s privacy under the garb of execution of the ad interim order.

The court agreed with the defendant’s contention that the interim order amounted to permitting the plaintiff to collect evidence in its favour. The court agreed with defendant’s apprehension that the plaintiff can claim confidentiality on drawings and other materials after it has been seized by the court receiver.

The court concluded that the ad interim order deserves to be vacated and thus refused to peruse the material seized and the mirror copies made by the neutral technical expert.

The court also refused to peruse the sealed cover of the drawings given by the plaintiff observing that both the parties will get an opportunity to lead evidence during trial to support their case.

Advocates Rashmin Khandekar, M. Roy Chowdhary, K. Khanna, Akshay Khanna, Akshay Kapadia, V. Desai i/b. ROYZZ and Co. represented the Plaintiff.

Advocates Hiren Kamod, Nishad Nadkarni, Khushboo Jhunjhunwala, Charu Shukla and Prem Khullar i/b. Khaitan and Co. represented the Defendants.

Case no. – Interim Application (L) No. 29924 of 2022 in Commercial IP Suit (L) No. 29923 of 2022

Case Title – Rochem Separation Systems (India) Pvt. Ltd. v. Nirtech Private Limited & Ors.

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Bom) 191

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