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23. In the recent case of M/s Allied Blenders and Distillers Pvt. Ltd. & Ors. v. Amit Dahanukar & Anr. 261 (2019) DLT 692, the plaintiffs sought protection of the marks 'MANSON HOUSE' and 'SAVOY CLUB' in This is a digitally signed Judgement.

NEUTRAL CITATION NO: 2022/DHC/001212 respect of alcohol. The defendants were ex-licensees of the plaintiffs. The plaintiff had filed a suit in 2009 in the Bombay High Court wherein the Bombay High Court had held in favour of the defendants by dismissing the plaintiffs' interim injunction application and the counter claim of the defendants had also been allowed. The Bombay High Court had also passed an interim order restraining the plaintiffs from introducing any products with the subject trademarks in the market without leave of the Bombay High Court. The defendants argued that the filing of the subsequent suit before the Delhi High Court by the plaintiffs, would be a case of forum shopping and owing to the principle of comity, the Delhi High Court ought not to adjudicate in favour of the plaintiffs. It was also observed by the Bombay High Court that the plaintiffs had filed the suit before the Delhi High Court while proceedings in Bombay were ongoing and injunction had been rejected already, and therefore the Bombay High Court restrained the plaintiffs from taking steps in the Delhi proceedings for some time. In view of all these facts, i.e., the parties being the same and the suits having commonality of interest, the ld. Single Judge of the Delhi High Court, held this to be a case of forum shopping and observed as under:

NEUTRAL CITATION NO: 2022/DHC/001212 above shows that the Commercial Court is seized of the matter and submissions have been partly heard on the injunction application. The entertaining of this suit before this Court, would in effect mean that the Plaintiff would be permitted to argue again on merits and seek an interim injunction here, while the same matter is part-heard before the Commercial Court.

31. In view of all these reasons including identity of the cause of action, multiple reliefs being impermissible under Section 135 of the Trademarks Act and the present suit being filed during the pendency of the first suit, if the present suit is entertained by this Court, this would clearly encourage forum shopping by a litigant who has been unable to get relief in a particular forum and hence decides to knock the doors of this Court. The principle of forum shopping has been recently decried by the Supreme Court in Vijay Kumar Gupta (supra) where the Court has held as under:

"7. Predominantly, the Indian Judiciary has time and again reiterated that forum shopping take several hues and shades but the concept of 'forum shopping' has not been rendered an exclusive definition in any Indian statute. Forum shopping as per Merriam Webster dictionary is:
The practice of choosing the court in which to bring an action from among those courts that could properly exercise jurisdiction based on determination of which court is likely to provide the most favourable outcome. 8 . The Indian judiciary's observation and obiter dicta has aided in streamlining the concept of forum shopping in the Indian legal system. This Court has condemned the practice of forum shopping by litigants and termed it as an abuse of law and also deciphered different categories of forum shopping.
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10. Forum shopping has been termed as disreputable This is a digitally signed Judgement.

NEUTRAL CITATION NO: 2022/DHC/001212 practice by the courts and has no sanction and paramountcy in law. In spite of this Court condemning the practice of forum shopping, Respondent No. 2 filed two complaints i.e., a complaint Under Section 156(3) Code of Criminal Procedure before the Tis Hazari Court, New Delhi o 06.06.2012 and a complaint which was eventually registered as FIR No. 168 Under Section 406, 420, 120B Indian Penal Code before PS Bowbazar, Calcutta o 28.03.2013. i.e., one in Delhi and one complaint in Kolkata. The Complaint filed in Kolkata was a reproduction of the complaint filed in Delhi except with the change of place occurrence in order to create a jurisdiction.