JUDGMENT :- The relief sought in both these suits is the same, namely, injunction arising out of an alleged infringement of copyright with other ancillary reliefs such as damages, accounts etc. The two suits have been tried together because of certain questions of law which arise in them but as the facts are necessarily different they have to be set out separately.

2. C. S. No. 54 of 1955 : The plaintiffs are Messrs. Macmillan and Co. Ltd. while the defendants are a firm of publishers carrying on business in Madras under the name and style of "The Little Flower and Co." Madras. The plaintiffs claimed that they were entitled to the copyright by assignment in respect of two works (1) The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy, and (2) A collection of stories by Rabindranath Tagore published under the style of "Stories from Tagore". The Return of the Native was prescribed by the University of Madras for the B. A. degree examination 1956, Part I English.

The defendants published in 1954 in Madras without the consent of the plaintiffs a "Guide to the Study of Hardys Return of the Native." The other work "Stories from Tagore" published by Messrs. Macmillan and Co. was prescribed as a text book for the Intermediate Examination of the University of Madras also of 1956 for Part I English. In regard to this work also the defendants published a guide in 1954. The complaint of the plaintiff was that these two "guides" reproduced substantial parts of the two original works and that though called "guide" they were in reality copies of the original works which competed with their; sales of these latter and therefore prejudicially affected the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs required the defendants, by formal notice to cease to publish these guides, and to render them an account of their, sales on the ground that these constituted an infringement of the copyright vested in them but when the infringement was denied and the claim of the plaintiffs repudiated the present suit has been filed for enforcing the rights of the plaintiffs. The reliefs claimed in the suit included the grant of an injunction restraining the defendants from printing, publishing or selling the books complained of or other editions thereof and directing the defendants to pay damages and render an account of the profits arising out of the defendants publications and also the delivery to the plaintiffs of copies of the guides which were now in the defendants possession.

3. The defendants raised the following pleas :

1. The plaintiffs based their claim on the Imperial Copy Right Act of 1911. The first plea raised was (a) that Thomas Hardys work "Return of the Native" was first published in the United States of America and was not simultaneously published in any part of His Majestys Dominions so as to enable the author to claim copyright under the said Act;

(b) that the Copyright Act of 1911 being a legislation of the Parliament of the United Kingdom ceased to be operative in India when India became Independent in 1947 and a fortiori after the country attained Republican Status in January 1950.

2. They put the plaintiffs to proof that they acquired the right to the copyright which Thomas Hardy was entitled, assuming that Thomas Hardy had rights under the Copyright Act of 1911 and that the rights acquired under the said Copyright Act could be enforced in India after India became a Republic in January 1950.

3. They denied infringement by stating that their guide did not contain the reproduction of any substantial part of Hardys novel.

4. They also pleaded that in. any event, their guide was "a fair dealing" protected by proviso (i) to S. 2(1) of the Copyright Act of 1911.

4. In regard to "Stories from Tagore" the pleas of the defendants were :

(a) that the plaintiffs right based on the Copyright Act, 1911, being inconsistent with the Republican status of India ceased to be operative after E6-1-1950;

(b) that the Stories from Tagore included in the plaintiffs volume were first written and