This judgment does not decide whether any defendant actually infringed any mark or copyright, does not bar the plaintiffs from suing elsewhere, and leaves each plaintiff free to seek directions under Order VII Rule 10A of the Code of Civil Procedure.
- Case
- ABD Maestro Pvt. Ltd. v. Great Galleon Ventures Ltd. and connected matters
- Court
- High Court of Delhi
- Decision
- Citation
- 2026:DHC:9844
- Bench
- Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav
- Judgment by
- Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav
- Case numbers
- CS(COMM) 987/2026; CS(COMM) 996/2026; CS(COMM) 598/2022; CS(COMM) 1010/2026; CS(COMM) 1041/2026; CS(COMM) 746/2026; CS(COMM) 611/2026; CS(COMM) 874/2026; CS(COMM) 128/2026; CS(COMM) 444/2026; CS(COMM) 917/2026; CS(COMM) 883/2026; CS(COMM) 1115/2026; CS(COMM) 980/2026; CS(COMM) 1120/2026; CS(COMM) 1081/2026; CS(COMM) 111/2026
- Outcome
- Seventeen commercial suits disposed of; each plaint returned under Order VII Rule 10 read with Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, to be presented before an appropriate court if so advised; liberty granted to seek directions under Order VII Rule 10A; pending applications disposed of.
All 17 plaints returned, with liberty to seek Rule 10A directions
The Delhi High Court has returned the plaints in 17 commercial suits, all concerning intellectual property disputes, on the ground of territorial jurisdiction. Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav held that each plaint deserved to be returned under Order VII Rule 10 read with Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, to be presented before an appropriate court if so advised, and granted each plaintiff liberty to apply for directions under Order VII Rule 10A.
The lead matter was ABD Maestro Private Limited v. Great Galleon Ventures Ltd., CS(COMM) 987/2026, and the common judgment, running to 246 pages, was reserved on 24 September 2026 and pronounced on 3 November 2026. The decision is about forum, not about infringement: it decides where these suits may be filed, not whether any defendant infringed anything.
One judgment, 17 suits, one common question
The 17 suits shared a single neutral citation, 2026:DHC:9844, and a single common judgment. They were commercial suits in which plaintiffs, mostly located outside Delhi, had approached the Delhi High Court alleging infringement and passing off, and the defendants had questioned whether the Court had territorial jurisdiction at all.
The suits were considered together because they raised the same recurring pattern: The judgment notes that in more than half of these suits neither party was at Delhi, and that the plaintiffs had approached this Court on novel and ingenious grounds although the court of the parties' own territorial jurisdiction was competent. The Court's answer was given once, in a framework judgment, and then applied suit by suit, with the operative return order listing all 17 case numbers.
Carries on business: principal office, not every footprint
A central part of the framework concerns the expression carries on business in Section 20 of the Code and in the jurisdiction provisions of the Trade Marks Act and the Copyright Act. The Court concluded that an earlier line of authority associated with the WWE decision does not govern this expression, being irreconcilable with Supreme Court decisions in Sanjay Dalia and Ultra Home and having ignored material portions of Dhodha House, and that the law is instead governed by the Supreme Court's pronouncements in Patel Roadways, Dhodha House and Sanjay Dalia, together with Ultra Home.
From those authorities the Court drew practical rules. If a corporation has a sole office, it is deemed to carry on business at that place. If it has more than one office, the principal place of business must be identified, ordinarily the registered office, and the other offices are subordinate or branch offices. A corporation is deemed to carry on business at a subordinate office only if the cause of action for the suit accrues there; in that scenario the company cannot instead sue at its principal office where no cause of action has accrued.
A website listing is not a Delhi cause of action
The most consequential part of the judgment for online commerce concerns website-based jurisdiction. The Court held that through the mere listing of a product on a website, contended to be an offer for sale, advertisement or promotion, jurisdiction cannot be established where that falls foul of the Banyan Tree requirements. A pleaded delivery in Delhi, unsupported by any document attached to the plaint, remains an unsupported assertion that cannot confer jurisdiction where there is none.
The reasoning guards against manufactured forum connections. Even assuming a fraction of a cause of action accrued in Delhi through a single delivery, that alone ought not to make the Court the forum conveniens, particularly where the delivery could equally have happened elsewhere and depends on the plaintiff's own wilful conduct. Courts must draw a line, the judgment's approach insists, between genuine territorial connection and a connection contrived through a transaction or an artificial online footprint.
For Order VII Rule 10 purposes the Court decides jurisdiction on what the plaint states, taking its averments as correct; but under Banyan Tree the plaintiff must still plead and produce material prima facie showing a commercial transaction with a user in the forum and targeting of the forum — an unsupported averment does not clear that threshold.
Return is not dismissal, and Rule 10A softens the landing
Return under Order VII Rule 10 is a forum correction, not a decision on the merits. The plaintiffs are not barred from pursuing their claims; they must pursue them before a court that has territorial jurisdiction. The additional liberty under Order VII Rule 10A allows each plaintiff to seek appropriate directions in connection with the return.
The judgment's wider significance lies in its warning to forum selection. The Delhi High Court has emerged as a preferred forum for intellectual property litigation, and this decision signals that preference alone, or a thin online thread to Delhi, will not sustain a suit there. Litigants must anchor jurisdiction in a real place of business or a real, pleaded and supported cause of action within the territory.
BANTHRY ANALYSISFor law students: jurisdiction is pleaded, proved prima facie, and policed
Students often treat jurisdiction as a technical preliminary. This judgment shows it as a substantive discipline with three moves. First, identify the correct test for the statutory phrase in play — here, carries on business — and the controlling authorities for it, setting aside attractive but non-governing decisions. Second, test the plaint's averments against that test at the prima facie stage, asking whether documents support the claimed connection rather than whether the claim sounds plausible. Third, remember the remedy: return, not dismissal, which preserves the claim while correcting the forum.
The online-commerce point deserves a second read. Accessibility is a fact about the internet, not a fact about the defendant's business in Delhi. Jurisdiction needs something more — targeting, a real transaction footprint, or a cause of action genuinely accruing within the territory — and that something must appear in the plaint with support, not merely in argument.
READING PROMPTSQuestions for a closer reading
- Why does mere accessibility of a defendant's website in Delhi not confer territorial jurisdiction on the Delhi High Court?
- How does the Court distinguish a corporation's principal place of business from a subordinate office for jurisdiction purposes?
- What is the effect of returning a plaint under Order VII Rule 10, and what does the liberty under Rule 10A add?
