The main legal point established in the judgment is that the respondent had the right to sue for patent infringement, and the appellant's claims of acquiescence, estoppel, and delay were not sustainable. Additionally, the court found that the respondent's patents were being commercially exploited, justifying the grant of a mandatory injunction.

( 1 ) THE souring of relationhship between joint venture partners has given use to the present dispute where the respondent is aggrieved by the alleged infringement of its patents by the appellant. A suit was thus filed by the respondent herein against the appellant for mandatory injunction from manufacturing and advertising as its on and selling the products of respondent, for which respondent has registered patents and design, in India or any where in the world for the product range of electric contactors and accessories known as the d2 range. The present appeal arises from the impugned order dated 27/11/2000 of the learned single Judge allowing interim application of the respondent IA No. 8522/99 under order 39 rules 1 and 2 read with section 151 of the Code of Civil procedure, 1908 and the order dated 27/11/2000 dismissing IA No. 6504/2000 filed by the appellant after the judgment had been reserved by the learned Single Judge on the injunction application.

( 2 ) IT is appropriate to observe at this stage before considering the rival contentions advanced on behalf of learned counsel for the parties that this appeal has to be decided within the parameters laid down by the Supreme Court in the case of Wander Limited and another vs. Antox india P. Ltd. 1990 (Supp) SCC 727. Thus in terms of the said decision this court will not interfere with the exercise of the discretion of the court of first instance, which is the order of learned Single Judge, and substitute its own discretion except where the discretion is shown to have been exercised arbitrarily or capricious or perversely or where a court has ignored the settled principles of law regulating grant or refusal of interlocutory injunctions. This court has also not to reassess the material and seek to reach a conclusion different from the one reached by the court below if the one reached by the court was reasonably possible on the material placed before it. The mere fact that this court may have reached to a contrary conclusion at the trial stage would not be thus good ground to interfere with the order of the learned Single judge if the discretion has been exercised by the learned Single Judge reasonably and in a judicial manner. The fact that the appellate court would have taken a different view has been held by the supreme Court not to justify interference with the trial courts exercise of jurisdiction. We have observed these principles at the inception because even at this stage of challer to the interlocutory order elaborate arguments have been advanced both on law and on appreciation of the material placed before the learned Single Judge. In fact the learned Single Judge has also noticed that though the matter in controversy was at the interlocutory stage, considerable material has been placed and lengthy arguments advanced even before the learned Single Judge.

( 3 ) THE beginning of the relationship between the parties was in 1983 when a French company known as La Telemecanique Electric (hereinafter referred to as LTE)-entered into a joint venture agreement with an Indian party for establishing a joint venture company for manufacturing certain contactors relays and add-on units in India. This joint venture gave rise to the incorporation of the appellant company in 1984 with 38% of the shareholding in the said company held by LTE. In development of this relationship between the parties, several agreements were executed including an agreement for supply of technical information and an agreement for technical services. Both these agreements were executed on 28/11/84. The government also granted permission to this collaboration agreement. These agreements were to remain in force for a period of 8 years from the date they were taken on record and thus the technical services agreement is stated to have come to an end on 28/2/93.

( 4 ) THE locus of the respondent, which is stated to be originally known as Schneider electric SA, is the transfer of rights of L