The High Court of Bombay, under the Oral directions of Hon’ble Justice S.J. Kathawalla has issued a notice on November 06, 2019[1], wherein the Parties and Advocates have been instructed that all the urgent mentioning for ex-parte ad-interim application in matters pertaining to Intellectual Property (IPR) will be allowed within the confines of a closed chamber.
It has been further notified that such matters will not be displayed in the production board of the Court to maintain the secrecy. The matters approved by the Court for urgent hearing would be directly called out in the court.
This move by the Bombay High Court is to prevent any leak of information in IPR cases. It has been reported that in the past there have been instances wherein the Counsel for the Defendant appeared for the hearing even when the Court did not issue any notice to the Defendant apparently on account of leakage of information by any lawyer present when the matter was being mentioned in the open court. Hence, it is expected that ‘in chamber’ proceedings as notified will prevent alleged leak of information in IPR cases in future.