Coke-Pepsi Spat Hearing Shifted

Justice D K Jain of Delhi High Court, hearing the case of soft drink major Pepsi's petition alleging poaching of its employees by Coca Cola India, has released the case as part heard, and transferred it to the court of his colleague where the civil case was being heard.

Justice Jain, who heard the case till now, said: "I find it difficult to make further adjustments at the cost of other cases, and I am constrained to release the matter."

Earlier, during discussions, Pepsi counsel K K Venugopal contended that a commissioner should be appointed to go into the records of the messages of a paging company for obtaining detailed transcripts of pager messages received by Pepsi's employees based in Kanpur from Coke officials.

 

The case will now come up for hearing before another judge on August 20. He is likely to hear the case afresh. During yesterday's discussions, Justice Jain also scotched references made by the Coke counsel that Pepsi has got some hidden agenda and is delaying the matter. "I don't think there is any hidden agenda (in Pepsi's actions)," Justice Jain said. Justice Jain transferred the case as he is not hearing civil matters under the current work allocation in the high court, and yesterday's hearing was held in his court as part of criminal hearings.

Pepsi had filed additional evidence yesterday in the form of few transcriptions of pager messages emanating from Coke officials and received by Pepsi executives in Kanpur.

It had also sought appointment of a court commissioner to go to Lucknow and obtain transcript of the talks between Coke and Pepsi officials as a third party to the Pepsi-Coke case.

Pepsi Foods Ltd had earlier this year moved the Delhi High Court alleging that Coke had entered into a conspiracy to cause damage to Pepsi and disrupt its business operations by inducing key employees and associates to break existing contracts illegally.

Pepsi's petition had sought permanent injunction against Coke, restraining it from taking away its employees and business associates.

The petition, invoking the 'Law of Torts', had cited incidents of its employees, independent bottlers, business consultants, distributors and institutional clients being offered inducements by Coca-Cola in the form of remuneration much higher than the prevailing industry average.