JUDGMENT

% 12.01.2026C. HARI SHANKAR, J.A Prefatory Note summarizing the judgment in conspectus

1. This appeal throws up issues, for consideration, which are of fundamental importance, not merely as legal principles relating to the patent regime, but also vitally of public interest.

2. The impugned order restrains the appellant from manufacturing or releasing, in the market, its product ZRC 3276, which is an anti- cancer drug and is essential for treatment of a wide variety of life- threating carcinomas, on the premise that the product infringes the respondent’s patent. According to the appellant, treatment, using the appellant’s product, would be 70% cheaper than treatment using the respondent’s patented drug 5C4.

3. The Supreme Court has, in its decisions in Ramnik Lal Bhutta v. State of Maharashtra , (1997) 1 SCC 134 and Raunaq International v. I.V.R. Construction Ltd , (1999) 1 SCC 492 , held that, while considering pleas for injunction or stay, public interest is also a consideration to be borne in mind, apart from the classical troika of a prima facie case, balance of convenience and irreparable loss.

4. That said, we have no doubt about the fact that the mere fact that the injun