The Delhi excessive court docket has directed a personal firm to pay ₹2 crore in damages to pharmaceutical firm Pfizer for “wilful disobedience and contempt of the court docket orders” the place it was directed to cease the sale of a compound Palbociclib, patent of which is held by Pfizer.
In an order dated January 24, 2023, justice C Hari Shankar mentioned that in case of failure of cost, Kamlesh Singh, director of Triveni Interchem Personal Restricted, must spend two weeks in Tihar jail.
“….the court docket deems it acceptable to get rid of this software by directing Kamlesh Singh, the director of Defendants 1 and a pair of to pay, to the plaintiff, an quantity of ₹ 2,00,00,000/- inside a interval of two weeks from at this time, failing which he shall be taken into custody and detained in a civil jail for a interval of two weeks at Tihar Jail, Delhi,” the court docket mentioned.
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In response to Pfizer’s lawyer Pravin Anand, Triveni Interchem Personal Restricted and Triveni Chemical substances had been discovered promoting and providing ‘on the market’ generic Palbociclib in lively pharmaceutical ingredient (API) type on their web sites and IndiaMART (e-commerce platform), with none permission or authorisation from Pfizer.
In October 2021, the excessive court docket granted interim reduction to Pfizer and directed Triveni to take away all of the listings from varied locations. Nevertheless, for the reason that cases of the sale of Palbociclib continued, Pfizer moved a contempt petition earlier than the excessive court docket towards the defendant firm.
Pfizer contended that Triveni entities had been merely altering the packaging wherein Palbociclib was being bought by it, continued to indulge within the sale of Palbociclib on its web site in addition to on a third-party web site and sought that Singh be punished for contempt.
On July 7, 2022, the excessive court docket noticed that “prima facie Triveni entities had been in contempt of the injunction order and directed them to render a selected reply,” whereas additionally directing Singh to seem earlier than the court docket.
Triveni entities filed affidavits with an unconditional apology, nevertheless, the identical lacked materials data and weren’t accepted by the court docket’s order.
“The apology tendered within the mentioned affidavit can also be, subsequently, unacceptable, coming from an individual who is totally unwilling to reveal, to this court docket, the precise amount of Palbociclib which Defendant 1 dealt in,” the court docket mentioned.
“It’s unattainable for this court docket to consider that Defendant 1 continued to indicate Palbociclib as a product wherein it was dealing, by itself web site in addition to on third social gathering web sites, and by no means bought or bought any Palbociclib by any means. If the current affidavit is to be believed then, even within the absence of any inventory of Palbociclib with it, the defendant was promoting Palbociclib on the market on the web. It is a clearly unacceptable place and is opposite to fundamental ideas of commerce,” the court docket had held whereas rejecting the affidavit by Triveni.
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Whereas the counsel for Triveni entities maintained that his shopper was not engaged within the manufacturing and sale of the compound, the court docket famous that there have been emails to show their dealing in Palbociclib.
On December 14, 2022, the court docket held the Triveni entities and its director Singh “in wilful disobedience and responsible of contempt of the court docket’s earlier order of October 2021.”
On the level of sentence on January 24, the court docket famous that the defendants had no regard for the reality, including that they had been making misstatements after misstatements earlier than the court docket.
The matter would once more be heard on March 16.