Supreme Court dismisses challenge to Madras High Court’s IPAB judgment

The Supreme Court today dismissed the Central Government’s Special Leave Petition challenging the Madras High Court judgment which deemed certain provisions of the Trademarks Act dealing with setting up of IPAB as unconstitutional..A bench comprising Justices Ranjan Gogoi and NV Ramana chose not to interfere with the Madras High Court’s judgment delivered in March this year..In the High Court judgment, Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul declared the composition of the Selection Committee, which appoints the Vice-Chairman, Judicial Member and Technical Member of the IPAB, to be contrary to the basic structure of the Constitution. Further, the judgment specifically laid down the qualifications for the three posts..It was also held that members of the Indian Legal Service cannot be appointed as a Vice-Chairman or a Judicial Member, thereby deeming Sections 85 (2) (b) and (3) (a) of the Trademarks Act as unconstitutional..Senior Advocate Arvind Datar, who appeared on behalf of the petitioner, told Bar & Bench,.“The Supreme Court did not find anything wrong with the Madras High Court judgment now that the principles for the Selection Committee have been laid down. They also made it very clear that a judicial body must have judicial members..How does a member of the Indian Legal Service with five or ten years’ experience, who is a part of the Executive, qualify to be a judicial member? In Union of India v. R Gandhi’s case, it was laid down that a member of the ILS is not qualified to be a judicial member.”.The matter dates back to 2011, when Prof Shamnad Basheer, along with others, filed a writ petition in the Madras High Court challenging the constitutionality of Section 85 of the Trademarks Act..In a release, Prof Basheer commented,.“The government took issue with all of the High Court findings in its SLP filed around ten days ago. Fortunately, the Supreme Court immediately dismissed this SLP, stating that the law was well settled and clear and there was no reason to interfere with the Madras High Court ruling..One hopes that the government will now resist fighting what is now a long and well established line of precedent and set in place a process for rendering the IPAB a more competent and judicially independent body, free of executive influence.”.Along with Datar, advocate Liz Mathew also appeared for the petitioner.