Jurisdictional challenges must be addressed promptly, but deferral to await a Commissioner's report is permissible unless it causes manifest injustice.

ORDER :

PRADEEP SINGH YERUR, J.

This petition is filed by the petitioner/defendant aggrieved by the impugned order dated 18.8.2025 passed by the trial Court in O.S. No.8367/2024.

2. Parties are referred to as per their ranking before the trial Court.

3. Plaintiff filed a suit against the defendants seeking the following reliefs:

i) Decree of perpetual injunction restraining the defendants, their agents, contractors, his employers, partners or any other person/entity claiming through or under the defendants from directly or indirectly copying, sharing or using in any manner the confidential/proprietary information/material belonging to the plaintiff inter alia as referred to in the forensic investigation report produced as Document No.20.

ii) Decree of mandatory injunction directing the defendants, their agents, contractors, his employers, partners or any other person/entity claiming through or under the defendants to deliver up to the plaintiff all copies of, and destroy any remaining physical and digital copies of the confidential/proprietary information/material belonging to the plaintiff.

4. The defendants on receipt of summons appeared before the Court, filed their written statement and sought for dismissal of the suit.

5. Alongwith the plaint, the plaintiff filed four interlocutory applications.

5.1 I.A. No.1/2024 came to be filed under Order II Rule 2 of CPC praying to allow the plaintiff to calculate and seek damages and other reliefs upon quantification of the damages and losses suffered on account of the acts of the defendants.

5.2 I.A. No.2/2024 came to be filed under Order XXXIX Rules 1 & 2 of CPC r/w Section 151 of CPC praying to grant an ad interim exparte order of Temporary Injunction restraining the defendants from directly or indirectly copying, sharing or using in any manner the confidential/proprietary information/material belonging to the plaintiff.

5.3 I.A. No.3/2024 came to be filed under Section 151 of CPC r/w Order XXVI Rules 1 & 9 praying to grant an ad interim exparte order appointing a Commissioner to seize computers, laptops, servers, mobile devices, external storage media etc., in the possession of the defendants.

5.4 I.A. No.4/2024 came to be filed under Section 151 of CPC r/w Order XXVI Rules 1 & 9 of CPC praying to grant an ad interim exparte order appointing a Commissioner to seize data storage media, files, folders, documents, cloud storage media, internal file sharing systems etc., of the defendants maintained with other computer applications.

6. Vide order dated 29.11.2024 in O.S. No.8367/2024, the trial Court allowed I.A. No.2/2024 and an ad interim exparte order of Temporary Injunction came to be passed prior to issuance of notice to the defendants.

7. It is the contention of learned senior counsel - Sri Dhananjay Joshi appearing on behalf of Sri. Vachan H.U., learned counsel for petitioners/defendants that aggrieved by refusal to pass an exparte ad interim order on I.A. No.3 by the trial Court and issuance of emergent notice, the respondent/plaintiff approached this Court in W.P.No.32999/2024. This Court passed an exparte order appointing the Commissioner. Thereafter, W.P. No.32999/2015 came to be disposed of vide order dated 29.1.2025 directing the Registry to transfer the Court Commissioner's report to the trial Court and the trial Court to pass appropriate orders in accordance with law, deciding the legality and validity of the Court Commissioner's report, after giving an oppor