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3. The matter was contested and the trial court by its order dated 22.09.2017 dismissed the application for interim injunction. In an appeal preferred by the plaintiff, the High Court by its order dated 21.12.2017 set aside the order passed by the trial court and remitted the matter back to the trial court for fresh consideration. It was observed by the High Court as under:-

“[6.1] In any case as observed hereinabove whether the source code or the object code of the plaintiff’s software and the defendants’ software are the same or not or the defendants have copied the source code or the object code of the plaintiff’s software or not would go to the root of the matter. The source code or the object code of the plaintiff’s and defendants’ software are required to be compared by calling upon both of them to provide their respective source code and object code which can be sent to any impartial and independent expert for comparison. Therefore, we are of the opinion that without further entering into the merits of the case and /or expressing anything on merits, the matter is required to be remanded to the learned Judge, Commercial Court for deciding the application Exh.5 afresh and after calling upon both, the plaintiff and the defendants to provide their respective source code and object code to the Court so that the same can be sent to any impartial and independent expert for comparison. On the aforesaid ground alone the impugned order passed by the learned Judge, Commercial Court deserves to be quashed and set aside and the matter is required to be remanded to the learned Judge, Commercial Court for deciding the application Exh.5 afresh and after undertaking the exercise as stated hereinabove.

4. While the matter thus stood remitted to the trial court, following orders were passed by the trial court:-

a) On 12.02.2018 a local Commissioner was appointed and both the parties were directed to provide source code and object code of their respective software to the local Commissioner. Paragraph 12 of the order was as under:-

“12. The Court Commissioner is directed to furnish the source and object code of defendants’ software “Work Manager” in sealed cover on 21.02.2018. Plaintiff is also directed to submit the certified copy of the copyrighted software’s source code and object code in sealed cover on 21.02.2018.” The parties were also directed to furnish the names of experts for comparing source code and object code.

b) On 28.02.2018 some directions were passed. One such direction was, “The plaintiff is further directed to furnish on affidavit that whatever source code and object code is registered, the same has been furnished to the Court Commissioner.”

c) On 16.03.2018 the trial court appointed one Mr. Robert “Bob” Zeidman whose name was suggested by the plaintiff as technical expert to compare the software of the plaintiff and defendants and “to report the Court as to whether the source code and object code of the defendants have infringed the copyright of the plaintiff”. The order indicates that names of three Institutions namely Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Department of Computer Science and Engineering Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and Department of Computer Science and Engineering Indian Institute of Technology, Madras were suggested by the defendants but were objected by the plaintiff on grounds inter alia that the Advocate for the defendants was associated with these Institutions and there was an apprehension regarding impartiality, independence of those Institutions. This objection was rejected by the trial court saying that merely because one of the Advocates had got educated from these Institutions would not mean that these Institutions could be won over by the defendants. The trial court however found that the profiles of the professors of the Institutions which were attached with the application, did not reveal that they could conduct the task of comparison of source code and object code. The trial court thus found said Mr. Zeidman to be the most competent person to undertake the task of comparing the software of source code and object code of the plaintiff and the defendants.

6. After the disposal of the matter by the High Court on 01.05.2018, an application was preferred by the defendants and one of the prayers was:-

“(d) Direction be issued to compare the source code and object code of the defendants’ software with the certified copy of the Registered Advisor Software 6.0 only, in consonance with the order of this Hon’ble Court dated 12.02.2018.” It was contended that the plaintiff had submitted additional material to be compared by the expert and that the matter be confined to source code of software Advisor 6.0. This matter was dealt with by the trial court by passing following direction in its order dated 04.05.2018:-