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'...20. It is the case of the defendants that there can be no copyright in customer database, accounts information, airway drawings, airway bills templates etc.

21. The plaintiff, save for the aforesaid description, has not given any other description of the works in which it claims copyright and no document also has been filed in this regard.

As per the reports of the commissions issued at the instance of the plaintiff also, what has been found in possession of the defendants is the list of customers and clients serviced by the plaintiff and their contact persons. Though the Commissioners have reported also finding e-mails/skype chats inter se the defendants while working with the plaintiff and/or e-mails between the defendants and present employee of the plaintiff, but there can possibly be no copyright therein.

45. This Court again in American Express Bank Ltd. Vs. Priya Puri 2006 SCC OnLine Del 638 held that the plaintiff in that case, in the garb of confidentiality, was trying to contend that that once the customer of the plaintiff, always a customer of the plaintiff. It was further held that the plaintiff, a bank in that case, could not restrain its competitor banks M/s. I Broad 7 Communication P Ltd. vs. Gaurav Kumar Patel Pages 14 of 20 from dealing with the customers of the plaintiff bank on the ground that the plaintiff bank maintained written record of its customers and their financial portfolios which had been acquired by the competitor bank and so the competitor bank should be restrained even to contact those customers. It was reasoned, that if the competitor bank without acquiring any information as to with whom a particular person or company is banking, can approach him and canvass about themselves, even after acquiring information that a particular person of company is banking with a bank is still entitled to approach him and canvass about themselves and it is for the customers to decide with which bank to bank. It was further held that creating a database of the clients/customers and then claiming confidentiality about it, will not permit creation of a monopoly about such customers. It was yet further reasoned that without impleading the customers in the suit, the competitor could not be restrained from dealing with the customers. It was thus held that details of customers are not trade secrets or property. The argument, on the basis of copyright therein, was also negatived.