J U D G M E N T

V. KAMESWAR RAO, J By this order, I shall decide the following two applications filed by the plaintiff and defendant No.1.

I.A. 5188/2022

1. This application has been filed under Order XXXIX Rules 1 and 2 read with Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC) by the plaintiff in the titled suit bearing CS(OS) No. 190/2022 seeking ad interim injunctions against the defendants, restraining the defendants, its associates, business partners, legal heirs or any person involved with the defendant No. 1 from carrying on any business in contravention of the terms of a Non-Disclosure Agreement („NDA‟, for short).

I.A. 6453/2022

2. This application has been filed under Order XXXIX Rule 4 of the CPC by the defendant No. 1 in the titled suit bearing CS(OS) No. 190/2022 to set aside the Order of this Court dated April 04, 2022 whereby the defendants in the said suit, its associates, business partners and employees were restrained from carrying on any business in contravention to the aforementioned NDA.

3. For the sake of convenience and brevity, the applicant in IA 5188/2022 shall be referred to as the „plaintiff‟ and the applicant in IA

6453/2022 shall be referred to as the „defendant company‟ hereinafter.

4. According to the plaintiff, it is a private limited company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956, engaged in the business of providing integrated outsourced technology solutions and field services to Banks and other financial institutions to facilitate the financial inclusion initiative in India. The plaintiff has over the years developed a unique in-house technology in rural banking services by providing a fully functional and certified end-to-end system for enabling authentication/e-KYC & payments on UIDAI-Aadhaar Enabled Payments System (AEPS) platform to financial institutions, as well as providing Gold Loan Sourcing. Defendant Nos. 2-20 in the original suit had been employed by the plaintiff to carry on its business, and for this purpose, certain important trade secrets, business connections and confidential information had been disclosed to them. The defendants in the suit were also signatories to an NDA, Clause 11 of which stated that they could not disclose such information to anybody for a period of two years from the date of their resignation. In December 2020, defendant Nos. 2, 3 and 4 resigned from the plaintiff company. Later, in March 2021, it was found that they had setup their own firm, i.e., the defendant company and were carrying out similar business as rivals to the plaintiff company. It is also stated in the application of the plaintiff that defendant Nos. 2, 3 and 4 also lured defendants Nos. 5 to 20, who also possessed certain information regarding the plaintiff‟s business, to join the defendant company. It is the case of the plaintiff that therefore, the defendants in the suit have violated the terms of the NDA, as a result of which the plaintiff has suffered loss, which is evident from the audit report submitted by it.

5. Subsequently, the plaintiff came to know that the defendant company had approached ICICI Bank, who was a regular customer of the plaintiff company and was doing business with it. They had also influenced defendant Nos. 5-20 in the suit to leave the plaintiff company and join them. Thereafter, on August 18, 2021, the plaintiff company issued a legal notice to the defendant company demanding them stop carrying on any business in competition with the plaintiff but the defendant company did not reply to it. Subsequent thereto, the plaintiff, alleging that there has been a violation of the NDA, filed the titled suit on April 01, 2022 seeking a permanent injunction restraining the defendants from making any further use of the confidential information and trade secrets. During the course of the hearing, this Court, vide order dated April 04, 2022 granted an ex-parte ad interim injunction to the plaintiff till the next dated of hearing, which position still continues.

6. Ms. Shanth