JUDGMENT

Mukta Gupta, J. - The hearing has been conducted through Video Conferencing.

2. Plaintiff Jindal Power Limited (in short "JPL") has filed the present suit against ICRA Limited, defendant herein, a credit rating agency inter alia praying for a decree of declaration, declaring the Credit Rating Rationales dated 24th April, 2020 and 30th April, 2020 passed by the defendant or any other similar credit rating rationale downgrading the plaintiff''s credit rating from BBB+ (stable outlook) to BBB (negative outlook) as null, void, unenforceable and ineffective and also seeks decree of mandatory injunction directing the defendant to withdraw the said credit rating rationales from the physical as well as electronic records of the defendant including on the world wide web. By the application under Order XXXIX Rule 1 and 2 CPC the plaintiff seeks an interim injunction in terms of prayers made in the suit.

3. The present suit and the application came up before this Court on 13th May, 2020 when summons in the suit were issued returnable before the learned Joint Register for 15th July, 2020 and in the application notice was issued returnable for 19th May, 2020.

4. On 19th May, 2020 learned counsel for the defendant entered appearance and stated that he had already prepared the reply and filed the same and liberty was granted to the learned counsel for the plaintiff to file rejoinder and the application was listed on 22nd May, 2020. During the course of arguments learned counsels for the parties agreed that even in the suit the parties have to lead no further evidence except the documents filed and since the arguments in the suit would also be based on the documents filed by the parties, the arguments be heard for disposal of the suit. Thus, after hearing learned counsels for the parties on various dates the judgment in the suit and application was reserved on 19th June, 2020.

5. Case of the plaintiff is that the plaintiff and the defendant entered into an agreement dated 15th June, 2016 qua the credit rating of the plaintiff company. Thereafter the defendant was carrying out the credit rating of the plaintiff company and was bound to follow the SEBI (Credit Rating Agencies) Regulations, 1999 (in short the CRA Regulations). Despite the fact that all the parameters for the purposes of rating the plaintiff company, were same in the present year, as the preceding year, the defendant vide its communication dated 24th April, 2020 intimated to the plaintiff its proposal to downgrade the credit rating from BBB+ to BBB. Plaintiff objected to the same and filed its objections on 26th April, 2020 whereafter the defendant vide its letter dated 30th April, 2020 communicated that it has reviewed the credit rating of the plaintiff company and is maintaining the same at BBB. The defendant also published the downgraded credit rating of the company on its website.

6. Challenging the two letters of the defendant dated 24th April and 30th April, 2020, learned counsel for the plaintiff contends that the same are exfacie wrong and contrary to the agreement between the parties have been uploaded on the website of the defendant. The credit rating of a party does not address any other risk including liquidity risk, market value risk or price volatility. The credit rating is only for the purposes whether the company is in a position to clear its debts. A perusal of the parameters of the last financial year as compared to the present financial year would show that the long term fund based term loans for the financial year 2020 ending is the same as financial year 2019, that is, Rs.6,863.94 crores. The long term fund based cash credit, long term non-fund based, short term fund based and unallocated instruments'' value also remain the same. The total bank facilities of the plaintiff company along with the non-convertible debentures remain the same. As a matter of fact, the current rated amount has reduced from Rs.6,863.94 Crores to Rs.6,443.80 crores and the non