A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court comprising Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah and Justice S. Muralidhar yesterday heard Senior Counsel Anand Grover's arguments in the appeal filed by German pharmaceutical giant Bayer against the decision of the Single Bench Judge.

Earlier, Justice Ravindra Bhat had dismissed Bayer's plea to restrain the Drug Controller General of India from granting a licence to Cipla for the manufacture, sale and distribution of the drug 'soranib' and had imposed a cost of Rs. 6,75,000 on Bayer, as it felt that the petition was based on a desire to delay the examination of Cipla's generic alternative. Arun Jaitley, Senior Counsel appeared for Cipla and was assisted by Pratibha Singh.

The judgement if confirmed by the Division Bench would pave the way for generic drug makers to start producing the generic variant of the patented drug before the patent term expires. This will allow them to have easy access to flood the market after the expiry of the patent. Justice Bhat had reasoned that the Drugs Act and the Patents act were disparate in their objectives and a plain joint reading was not possible.

By filing the petition, Bayer had attempted to set a legal precedent which would turn drug licensing authorities into de-facto drug patent enforcers. Senior Counsel Shanti Bhushan briefed by Peeyosh Kalra and assisted by the offices of Remfry & Sagar appeared on behalf of Bayer. Senior Counsel Anand Grover was briefed by Nandita Rao of Kanth & Associates and appeared on behalf of Cancer Patients Aid Association. Sources confirmed that Senior Counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi will appear on behalf of Cipla, who will address arguments on November 23.