Madras High Court Reiterates Responsibility to Deal With All Issues in Court Proceedings
17 October 2012
Where several issues are brought forward before a Court or a tribunal and there is possibility of appeals being filed during the course of proceedings, the Court must deal with all the issues instead of disposing of only one or some issue raised by the parties. The Madras High Court has reiterated this principle in the case of Aloys Wobben Argestrasse v. Enercon (India) and Intellectual Property Appellate Board. In this case, Aloys Wobben filed a writ petition for the issuance of the writ of Certiorari to quash the orders passed by the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (the IPAB) in various miscellaneous petitions filed by the petitioner in the Original Revocation Applications that were pending before the IPAB.
Enercon (India), the first Respondent in the above writ petition had filed 18 Original Revocation Applications (ORAs) before the IPAB seeking revocation under Section 64 of the Patents Act, 1970 of 18 Patents that were granted to Aloys Wobben by the Indian Patent Office during 2006. In those ORAs, Aloys Wobbens filed individual miscellaneous petitions before the IPAB challenging the maintainability and thus seeking dismissal of said revocation applications. Aloys Wobben also asked the IPAB to fix an early date for hearing in the said miscellaneous petitions.
Aloys Wobben challenged the maintainability of original revocation applications filed by Enercon on grounds of the competence of Yogesh Mehra, who signed and verified the original revocation applications for and on behalf of Enercon. Aloys Wobben relied on various provisions of the Articles of Association of Enercon and also on a proceeding pending before the Company Law Board (CLB) wherein the CLB had directed the parties to maintain status quo on all issues that were pending before it. The CLB also directed the parties that no further actions could be taken by any of the parties without leave of the CLB.
Enercon countered Aloys Wobben’s arguments in its reply stating that the miscellaneous petitions filed by Aloys Wobben were signed and affirmed by Balan Kombi and that there was no documentary evidence to show that the said Kombi was competent to have done the same. In addition, it was further stated that as per an Enercon Board resolution, Yogesh Mehra, in the capacity of managing director of the company, had the required locus standi and competence to file and institute the revocation proceedings on behalf of the Company. Additionally, the respondent also raised various factual matters in reply to the allegation made by Aloys Wobben in the miscellaneous petition. Aloys Wobben in turn filed a rejoinder contending that the Board resolution was void and that Mehra had no competence to file the revocation application.
The IPAB observed that there were three ways to dispose of the matter:
• To consider the miscellaneous petition and decide the locus immediately.
• To adjourn the matter sine die until the Company Law Board decides; or
• To consider the entire matter while hearing the Original Revocation application.
The IPAB exercised the third option and disposed of the miscellaneous petitions with the direction to the registry to list the Original Revocation Application to be heard by IPAB on a day-today basis. Aggrieved by such order, the petitioner filed the present writ petition before the Madras High Court.
Counsel appearing for Aloys Wobben submitted the following:
• The Locus standi of the respondent company to maintain the application for revocation was questionable and the IPAB should have decided such issue at the first instance.
• The IPAB seemed to have confused the concept of locus standi with that of person interested as described under the Patents Act.
• The IPAB made an error while holding that the proceedings before the Company Law Board would not affect the proceedings before it.
• Several revocation applications filed in the year 2006 were still pending before the IPAB and as such there was no urgency for IPAB to consider the Original Revocation Application.
• The revocation applications were filed by the minority share holder and therefore were not maintainable because it amounted to Aloys Wobben’s funds being used to fight against it.
• The Company Law Board had ordered for status quo with regard to all proceedings pending before it.
Counsel for the Respondent, relying on the decisions of the Supreme Court in Fomento Resorts and Hotels v. Gustovo Ranato Da Cruz Pinto and Ors and Haribhau Madhav Jalve v. Ramesh Vithal Choudhari and Ors, contended that the question of locus could be decided as one among several issues. Also, as per the Company Law Board order, which directed that without the Board’s leave no board meeting could be convened or held and as the writ petitioner did not seek the leave of the Board to hold any Board meeting, he could not contend that his rights were being affected.
The Madras High Court observed that in order to decide whether the managing director of a company has locus standi to maintain the application for revocation before the IPAB, it is necessary to look into the factual aspects of the case in hand. It was further observed that the Supreme Court had laid down the practice and procedure to be adopted where several issues are raised before Court and there is possibility of appeal. In such cases, the Court must deal with all issues instead of disposing the case on only one issue. In the present case, there was a possibility of an appeal and the present writ petition was one such example. The High Court therefore did not find any grounds to interfere with the order passed by the IPAB. The writ petition was dismissed and further the IPAB was requested to take up the Original Revocation Application along with the miscellaneous petition and hear and dispose of the same.
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