The unfinished business of choosing your jurisdiction in IP litigation

A Delhi High Court dispute over comparative advertising has exposed a deeper fault line in Indian IP litigation: where should rights holders be able to sue when business and advertising increasingly happen online? Aarti Aggarwal of Remfry & Sagar unpacks a case that puts conflicting jurisdictional rules under scrutiny.

A dispute over a dishwashing liquid and a liquid detergent has, in the space of three weeks, produced one of the more searching judicial examinations of territorial jurisdiction in Indian intellectual property litigation (Hindustan Unilever Limited v Kwick Living (I) Private Limited CS(COMM) 904/2026, Delhi High Court).

The underlying complaint was, on its face, a straightforward comparative advertising dispute. What made it noteworthy was that before the Delhi High Court could even consider whether to restrain the impugned advertisements, it had to first decide whether it had any business hearing the case at all—and it answered that question by referring three questions of law to a larger bench for judicial consideration.

The dispute

Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL), the maker of VIM dishwash and SURF EXCEL detergent brands (both being household names in India), sued Kwick Living (I) Private Limited, which sells cleaning products under the brand ‘BECO’, over an advertising campaign (see figure 1 and figure 2).

The campaign, run on YouTube, Instagram, physical hoardings and Kwick’s own website, asserted that VIM and SURF EXCEL contain Linear Alkylbenzene Sulfonate (LAS) and Benzisothiazolinone (BIT) in stated concentrations and that these ingredients “can cause skin irritation and allergic reactions” (see figure 3 and figure 4).

BECO’s products, it was asserted, did not contain these ingredients, following which the viewer was urged to “Switch to BECO”.

HUL sued Kwick for trademark infringement, copyright infringement, passing off, unfair competition and, principally, commercial disparagement, and sought an interim injunction restraining the campaign.

The suit was filed in the Delhi High Court. Kwick objected to jurisdiction. Both companies have their registered offices in Mumbai, and HUL’s own statement of claim conceded that the only impugned hoarding it had been able to confirm was photographed in Mumbai, not Delhi.

HUL nonetheless maintained that Delhi was a proper forum: it has a corporate office in the city, the campaign was accessible online there, and Delhi consumers could buy BECO products through Kwick’s website. Kwick’s answer was that there was no invoice proving a single Delhi sale and no averment that Delhi had been purposefully targeted.

The statutory architecture

Section 20 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (CPC), which is the general rule, provides that a suit may be instituted where the defendant resides or carries on business (clauses (a) and (b)) or where the cause of action wholly or in part arises (clause (c)).

The explanation to the provision deems a corporation to carry on business at its sole or principal office in India, or, in respect of any cause of action arising at any place where it has a subordinate office, at such place.

Sections 134(2) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 and 62(2) of the Copyright Act, 1957 superimpose an additional, plaintiff-friendly forum. Each provides that a court having jurisdiction shall include a court within whose local limits the plaintiff actually and voluntarily resides, carries on business or personally works for gain at the time of institution.

Their legislative purpose, as Indian case law repeatedly explains, was to spare proprietors the burden of litigating at the defendant’s distant forum.

How the law evolved

In Indian Performing Rights Society v Sanjay Dalia [(2015) 10 SCC 161], the Supreme Court read these provisions restrictively: where a plaintiff’s principal office is at a place where the cause of action has also arisen, it must sue there and cannot invoke a distant subordinate office, the object being to curb forum shopping by corporations with offices nationwide.

A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court in Ultra Home Construction Pvt. v Purushottam Kumar Chaubey [2016 SCC OnLine Del 376] then systematised the position into four scenarios:

The third scenario is striking: a provision enacted to spare the plaintiff a distant forum is read to compel it to one. In Kohinoor Seed Fields India (P) v Veda Seed Sciences (P). [2025 SCC OnLine Del 8727], a later Division Bench of the Delhi High Court doubted Ultra Home for this reason, observing that it amounted to “re-writing Section 134 of the Trade Marks Act”.

Meanwhile, Burger King Corpn. v. Techchand Shewakramani [(2018) 1 HCC (Del) 64] treats Section 134 as merely additional to Section 20, holding that a cause of action arises wherever a mark is used, including in advertising.

The online dimension compounds the conflict. In Banyan Tree Holding (P) v A Murali Krishna Reddy [2009 SCC OnLine Del 3780], a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court held that mere accessibility of a website, even an interactive one, does not confer jurisdiction; the plaintiff must show that the defendant purposefully targeted the forum, causing injury there.

World Wrestling Entertainment v Reshma Collection [2014 SCC OnLine Del 2031] however, treated a website capable of concluding transactions in Delhi as equivalent to a physical store in Delhi, and Kohinoor Seed Fields extended that reasoning to defendants: wherever a transaction could be concluded online, a suit may lie.

Nilesh Girkar v Zee Entertainment Enterprises [2025 SCC OnLine Del 6040] went further still, treating nationwide OTT availability as giving rise to a part cause of action in Delhi.

The reference

Cautioning that the internet cannot be permitted to “throw the very concept of territorial jurisdiction of courts to the winds” and faced with what it characterised as irreconcilable strands of authority within its own court, in the instant case, the Single Judge referred three questions to a Larger Bench:

• Whether IP suits are governed solely by Section 20 CPC, Section 134 of the Trade Marks Act or Section 62 of the Copyright Act, or by an interplay of these provisions, and if so, how.
• Whether a corporate plaintiff must sue only where its principal or registered office is situated when a part of the cause of action has arisen there.
• What jurisdictional rule should govern online transactions in IP disputes, given the conflicting approaches in Banyan Tree, World Wrestling Entertainment and Kohinoor Seed Fields.

Having done so, and with the very maintainability of the suit thrown into doubt, the court on August 25, 2026, declined to rule on HUL’s interim injunction application at all, adjourning it to await the Larger Bench’s guidance on the above.

The appeal

HUL appealed the refusal (no appeal lies against a reference). On the appellate bench’s query, Kwick confirmed a Delhi GST registration with a declared principal place of business there, hoardings erected in Delhi on August 14, 2026, and sales in Delhi.

On these admissions, the appellate bench held Sections 20(a) and 20(c) CPC satisfied, decided jurisdiction, permitted a consented amendment of the statement of claim and remitted the injunction application back for consideration on merits before the Single Judge. The reference itself remains pending.

The final order: Disparagement on the merits

On September 10, 2026, the Single Judge granted the injunction. Disparagement requires falsity and injury; an unflattering comparison alone is protected speech. Unlike in defamation, a defendant pleading truth must show that its plea is prima facie credible.

Truth is judged by the overall message, not frame by frame. Without weighing the laboratory reports, the court held that pairing the chemical claims with HUL’s packs, the call to switch and BECO’s “hypoallergenic” claims conveyed the unmistakable message that HUL’s products cause skin irritation. The impugned advertisements were ordered withdrawn within a week.

Takeaway

The series of orders in this case is a useful illustration of a structural feature of Indian civil procedure: the coexistence of a general jurisdictional code with special, plaintiff-favouring venue provisions in the intellectual property statutes, and the difficulty of keeping those two regimes in step as commerce migrates online.

Sanjay Dalia was decided in 2015, before campaigns habitually lived on Instagram and YouTube, and the Delhi High Court’s case law on the digital sphere has since pulled in different directions. The reference is now live: a three-Judge Bench has been constituted to take up the questions on September 25, 2026, and its answers will shape where IP suits in India may be filed. On the merits, the line between comparative advertising and disparagement turns not on the accuracy of any single claim, but on the overall impression left with the ordinary consumer.

Aarti Aggarwal is a managing associate at Remfry & Sagar. She can be contacted at:  aarti.aggarawal@remfry.com