Jurisdiction of the court limited only where part of cause of action taken place

The suit could have been instituted at the place of the principal office because of the situation of such office (whether or not any actual business was carried on there). Alternatively, a suit could have been instituted at the place where the cause of action arose under clause (c) (irrespective of whether the corporation had a subordinate office in such place or not). This was, therefore, not the purpose of the explanation. The explanation is really an explanation to clause (a). It is in the nature of a clarification on the scope of clause (a) viz. as to where the corporation can be said to carry on business. Thus, it is clarified, will be the place where the principal office is situated (whether or not any business actually is carried on there) or the place where a business is carried on giving rise to a cause of action (even though the principal office of the corporation is not located there) so long as there is a subordinate office of the corporation situated at such place.

The linking together of the place where the cause of action arises with the place where a subordinate office is located clearly shows that the intention of the legislature was that, in the case of a corporation, for the purposes of clause (a), the location of the subordinate office, within the local limits of which a cause of action arises, is to be the relevant place for the filing of a suit and not the principal place of business. If the intention was that the location of the sole or principal office as well as the location of the subordinate office (within the limits of which a cause of action arises) are to be deemed to be places where the corporation is deemed to be carrying on business, the disjunctive "or" will not be there. Instead, the second part of the explanation would have read "and in respect of any cause of action arising at any place where it has a subordinate office, also at such place".

High Court Of Delhi

 TIMES OF MONEY LIMITED . Vs . REMITHOME CORPORATION & ANOTHER

Dated : August 13, 2012

1. The plaintiff has filed a suit for declaration and other consequential reliefs of injunction seeking following prayers:

“(a) a decree of declaration declaring that the plaintiff has right and legitimate interest in respect of the impugned domain names “www.remit2home.com” and “www.remit2home1.com” and the domain name registrations and use of such domain names by the plaintiff are not in “bad faith”;

(b) a decree for permanent injunction restraining the defendant No.2 from transferring the impugned domain names “www.remit2home.com” and “www.remit2home1.com” from the plaintiff to the defendant No.1;

(c) a decree for damages suffered by the plaintiff on account of the complaint filed by the defendant No.1 subject matter of the present suit and the impugned decision dated 21st February, 2008 passed thereon causing irreparable damages and injury to the goodwill and reputation of the plaintiff;

(d) pass any further orders as this Hon‟ble Court may deem fit and proper under the facts and circumstances of the present case.”

2. By way of this order, I propose to decide the present application filed by the plaintiff under Order XXXIX Rules 1 and 2 read with Section 151 of CPC, 1908. Plaintiff has filed the instant suit for declaration, perpetual injunction and damages against the defendants.

3. Brief facts of the case leading up to filing of the present suit are enunciated as under:

a) The plaintiff belongs to the “Times Group” which started 7 decades ago with the business of publishing news papers, journals, magazines and books. The plaintiff has also entered the field of e-commerce and the primary business is to provide the money transfer facility to the people of different ethnic communities residing in USA to their home countries through the plaintiff‟s internet services by using the plaintiff‟s website namely www.remit2india.com for online money transfers. The remittance operations were commenced on 14th February, 2001 with one country (USA) and one currency (USD). Now includes 23 countries and 9 originating currencies.

b) Remit2india.com as a domain name was registered on 9th June, 2000 in favour of the plaintiff by Dynaserve Technologies Ltd. Canada, that is a Registrar accredited by ICANN. The plaintiff also adopted similarly structured domain names/trademarks namely remit2home.com and remithome1.com which were duly registered on 20th July, 2004 and 14th November, 2006 respectively, by ICANN accredited registrar namely Net 4 India Limited, the defendant No.2, which is a public limited company registered under the Companies Act, 1956 having its registered office in New Delhi.

c) The plaintiff has filed a number of trademark applications in India in order to protect is proprietary rights in the said marks. The list of pending and registered trademarks is as under:

The above trademarks have been duly renewed, valid and subsisting.

4. The details of plaintiff‟s pending applications for registration are given as under:

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