Shyam Sel and Power Limited & Anr. vs. Shyam Steel Industries Limited
Background
Shyam Steel Industries sued Shyam Sel and Power for trademark infringement and "passing off," alleging the defendants were wrongly using the "SHYAM" mark on their TMT bars (steel rebar) to trade on the plaintiff's reputation. When the plaintiff sought an urgent interim injunction, the Calcutta High Court's Single Judge instead simply gave the defendants two weeks to file their reply and adjourned the injunction question by three weeks, while directing the defendants to keep weekly sales records in the meantime. The plaintiff appealed this routine procedural order to a Division Bench of the High Court, which, nearly nine months later, went ahead and granted a full injunction against the defendants using the "SHYAM" mark at all.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that the Single Judge's order was merely a scheduling/procedural order. It decided nothing conclusively about the injunction and therefore did not qualify as a "judgment" that could be appealed to a Division Bench under Clause 15 of the Calcutta High Court's Letters Patent; the appeal itself was not legally permitted. Even looking past that, the Court found the Division Bench's approach deeply flawed: it effectively decided the interim injunction application itself, a decision that belonged to the Single Judge, without properly analysing the standard tests of prima facie case, balance of convenience, and irreparable harm, and without showing the Single Judge's view was arbitrary or perverse (the only basis on which an appellate court may override a trial court's discretion). The Court set aside the Division Bench's order, directed the Single Judge to decide the injunction application within six weeks, and imposed a token cost of Rs. 5 lakh on the plaintiff for pursuing what it called an unwarranted appeal against an unappealable order.
Lesson Learnt
Not every order a trial judge passes can be appealed, only orders that finally decide something significant qualify as an appealable "judgment," and appellate courts must respect the trial court's discretion on interim matters rather than substituting their own view without solid legal grounds.