‘Pay ₹2 cr to Pfizer or go to jail’: Delhi HC to Triveni Interchem director | Latest News India | Times Of Ahmedabad

The Delhi high court has directed a private company to pay ₹2 crore in damages to pharmaceutical company Pfizer for “wilful disobedience and contempt of the court orders” where it was directed to stop the sale of a compound Palbociclib, patent of which is held by Pfizer.

In an order dated January 24, 2023, justice C Hari Shankar said that in case of failure of payment, Kamlesh Singh, director of Triveni Interchem Private Limited, will have to spend two weeks in Tihar jail.

“….the court deems it appropriate to dispose of this application by directing Kamlesh Singh, the director of Defendants 1 and 2 to pay, to the plaintiff, an amount of ₹ 2,00,00,000/- within a period of two weeks from today, failing which he shall be taken into custody and detained in a civil prison for a period of two weeks at Tihar Jail, Delhi,” the court said.

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According to Pfizer’s lawyer Pravin Anand, Triveni Interchem Private Limited and Triveni Chemicals were found advertising and offering ‘for sale’ generic Palbociclib in active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) form on their websites and IndiaMART (e-commerce platform), without any permission or authorisation from Pfizer.

In October 2021, the high court granted interim relief to Pfizer and directed Triveni to remove all the listings from various places. However, since the instances of the sale of Palbociclib continued, Pfizer moved a contempt petition before the high court against the defendant company.

Pfizer contended that Triveni entities were merely altering the packaging in which Palbociclib was being sold by it, continued to indulge in the sale of Palbociclib on its website as well as on a third-party website and sought that Singh be punished for contempt.

On July 7, 2022, the high court observed that “prima facie Triveni entities were in contempt of the injunction order and directed them to render a specific reply,” while also directing Singh to appear before the court.

Triveni entities filed affidavits with an unconditional apology, however, the same lacked material information and were not accepted by the court’s order.

“The apology tendered in the said affidavit is also, therefore, unacceptable, coming from a person who is completely unwilling to disclose, to this court, the exact quantity of Palbociclib which Defendant 1 dealt in,” the court said.

“It is impossible for this court to believe that Defendant 1 continued to show Palbociclib as a product in which it was dealing, on its own website as well as on third party websites, and never purchased or sold any Palbociclib whatsoever. If the present affidavit is to be believed then, even in the absence of any stock of Palbociclib with it, the defendant was advertising Palbociclib for sale on the internet. This is a clearly unacceptable position and is contrary to basic principles of trade,” the court had held while rejecting the affidavit by Triveni.

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While the counsel for Triveni entities maintained that his client was not engaged in the manufacturing and sale of the compound, the court noted that there were emails to prove their dealing in Palbociclib.

On December 14, 2022, the court held the Triveni entities and its director Singh “in wilful disobedience and guilty of contempt of the court’s earlier order of October 2021.”

At the point of sentence on January 24, the court noted that the defendants had no regard for the truth, adding that they were making misstatements after misstatements before the court.

The matter would again be heard on March 16.