Section 62 (2) of the Copyright Act permits a plaintiff to sue where it carries on business or the cause of action arises, irrespective of the location of its registered office.

( 1 ) THIS is an application under Order 14 Rule 2 sub rule (a) and sub rule 2 (b) read with Section 7 and 10 code of Civil Procedure and Section 151 Code of Civil Procedure seeking dismissal of the suit in its present form or in the alternative to return the plaint for filing the same in the appropriate Court on the short ground that this Court has no territorial jurisdiction to try the instant suit. A similar application has also. been filed by way of IA No. 3455/2000. Both the applications stand decided by this order because of the commonality of the relief.

( 2 ) THE plaintiff is a Fashion Designer and manufacturers. and sells Fashion Garments for ladies in the trading style of Ritu s Boutique. The plaintiff s garments are identifiable on account of the originality of the fabric prints. The garments so manufactured have element of exclusivity bearing creative original prints resulting in complex printed textiles and produced in limited editions to retain exclusivity. This involves expensive and time consuming Research and Development of the fabric prints. Various steps involved in creating and designing of the prints have been detailed in para 6 of the plaint.

( 3 ) ON the aforesaid premise the plaintiff has sought permanent infunction restraining the defendants, their respective proprietors or partners, their officers, servants, agents and all others acting for and on their behalf from reproducing, printing, publishing and distributing or offering to sell prints in any form whatsoever that are a colourable imitation or substantial reproduction of the plaintiff s drawings/sketches, templates, film tracings, screens, engravings and/or fabric designs pertaining to kulah , Ambi Bandhini and Sangrnarmar and/or any other prints enumerated in the plaintiff s catalogue amounting to infringement of the plaintiff s copyright.

( 4 ) THE Jurisdiction of this Court has been invoked by the plaintiff mainly on the following premise:

(A) That the plaintiff company was formed in the year 1976 and in January, 1977 it took over the business of two running partnership concerns namely Ritika, formed in 1972 and Ritu s Boutique formed in 1969 and with effect from 22. 5. 96 the plaintiff became a deemed public limited company under Section 43 (1a) of the Indian Companies Act, 1956. (b) That the plaintiff has its registered office at Calcutta and Head Office at E-4, Hauz Khas, New Delhi besides several outlets in Delhi. (c) That the plaintiff runs a printing and processing plant in Calcutta and has a manufacturing base in New Delhi. It also exports and retails read/made garments.

( 5 ) ON the contrary territorial jurisdiction of this court has been challenged by the defendant mainly on the following grounds

(I) That the plaintiff has not only its registered office at Calcutta, it has also a trading and processing plant at Calcutta and has been carrying on its business from the said registered office. (ii) Even as per averments of the plaintiff the cause of action arose when the representative of the plaintiff who works for gain in Calcutta purchased one salwar suit from the defendants which was similar to the one manufactured by-the. plaintiff. (iii) Since the plaintiff is registered under the Companies Act it cannot file the suit nor can create cause of action. either by actually or voluntarily residing at New Delhi as a Director of the defendant company or by serving a notice therefrom. The Jurisdiction is determined on the basis of the registered office of a company and of the place where the alleged violation is committed or detected. (iv) Even while obtaining the Sales Tax the plaintiff company did not mention that it has also an office in Delhi. (v) Though there is a separate and independent company Ritika Private Limited formed by Ritu Kumar but the suit has been filed on behalf of the Ritika Limited which is an independent company. Since the plaintiff was not in possession of any documents pertaining to Ritika limited ha