Winning a suit is half the battle

Even if a litigant gets a decree in his favour, it is a long time before he will be able to enjoy the result, as the trouble for him starts when he tries to execute it, the Supreme Court said in its recent judgment, Satyawati vs Rajinder Singh. This was the problem pointed out by the Privy Council in a 1872 case and the situation has not changed after centuries, the judgment pointed out. In this case, Satyawati won a property case in 1996, but she has not been able to get the property in Faridabad, near Delhi, till today due to the expensive and tiresome execution proceedings. She has been shunted from the executing court to the Punjab and Haryana High Court and now the Supreme Court. According to the courts below, the decree was not 'executable'. The Supreme Court has now asked the executing court to pass its order without unreasonable delay. It said, "if the decree-holder is unable to enjoy the fruits of his success his entire effort would be in vain. The delay benefits unscrupulous parties and the person in wrongful possession delights in the delay in procedural complications."

PSUs frustrate arbitration
The Delhi High Court has appointed its former Chief Justice A P Shah as the sole arbitrator in a long-pending dispute between a private company and a public sector undertaking as the latter has "forfeited its right to appoint an arbitrator" because of long delays, adjournments and change of arbitrators. In this case, Ishvakoo (India) Ltd vs National Projects Construction Corporation, the parties agreed in the arbitration clause that disputes will be settled by a person appointed by the chairman and managing director of the government company. One of them quit after seven years of futile exercise stating that it has become "unnecessary and impossible". The next one also quit after nearly two years. His successor also failed to carry the proceedings forward. So Ishvakoo approached the high court for appointing a sole arbitrator. In a similar case, the Supreme Court had stated that the delays and frequent changes in the arbitral tribunal when a PSU is involved made a "mockery of the process of arbitration."

MoEF order on fly ash quashed

The Madras High Court has set aside an order of the Ministry of Environment and Forests directing the Tamil Nadu General & Distribution Corporation to comply with the Fly Ash Utilisation Amendment Notification of November 2009. The notification granted incentives to brick manufacturers at the cost of electricity generating companies, "which actually suffocate under accumulated losses running to thousands of crores of rupees." The notification obliged the corporation to provide free of cost 20 per cent of the fly ash generated by them from thermal plants to other manufacturers. The policy was meant to reduce fly ash polluting air and utilising it for related industries. "But to direct the generating companies to give free of cost, 20 per cent of fly ash generated by coal/thermal power plants, infringed upon the property rights of the generating companies, the judgment said, and added that "the very object of the Electricity Act, 2003 is to liberate the state from the heavy burden imposed upon them by the respective state electricity boards, in the form of mounting losses."

Hotels fight for Orchid name
In a dispute between two hotels over the word Orchid in their names, the Intellectual Property Appellate Tribunal last week set aside the order of the Registrar of Trade Marks and asked him to proceed with the registration of their respective names. The registrar rejected the application of Royal Orchid Hotels of Bangalore for the word Orchid because as a Mumbai hotel, Kamat Hotels, used the same word for certain services. The board stated that the names cannot be confused. "The class of customers is of the high income group and there is no likelihood of confusion especially where the mark relates to service. Even if the mark related to goods bought off the shelf, we doubt if the word Orchid and the Royal Orchid will cause confusion," the judgment said.