After two hard-hitting posts (Part I and Part II) on transparency surrounding public money in COVID-19 vaccines, Prashant Reddy wraps up this three part saga with a curious incident. Here, he writes on the DHC’s move to invite Bharath Biotech’s executive as a guest to its official event marking World IP Day, 2023. In this post, Prashant engages with pressing questions like- should active litigants be invited as guests to the events hosted by High Courts? And, wouldn’t such a move impact the perception of justice and courts in the public eye? Prashant Reddy T is one of our most prolific bloggers (his posts can be accessed here). He is also the co-author of three books- “Create, Copy, Disrupt: India’s Intellectual Property Dilemmas” (OUP, 2017), “The Truth Pill: The Myth of Drug Regulation in India” (Simon and Schuster India, 2022), and “Tareekh Pe Justice: Reforms for India’s District Courts” (Simon and Schuster India, 2025). Views expressed are those of the author’s.
Should Delhi High Court be Inviting Pharmaceutical Companies for its Official Event to Mark World IP Day?
By Prashant Reddy T.
Come every April 26 the community of practitioners of intellectual property law in India and elsewhere flocks together to celebrate “World IP day”. The date has been designated by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) as “World IP day” and as per the WIPO’s website it is meant to increase general understanding of intellectual property by celebrating the contributions made by inventors and creators around the world.
For a country like India, it should also mean debating questions of access to medicines, academic literature and art, be it movies or music. It is important to not forget that India was basically arm-twisted into signing some of these IP treaties that are administered by WIPO. Thus, April 26th is better spent reflecting on the direction taken by WIPO and IP law, as has been done often by essays published on SpicyIP over the last many years.
But setting aside the symbolism of April 26th for a minute, I want to focus specifically on an event held by the Delhi High Court on April 26, 2023 on the occasion of World IP day, which had the theme of ‘Women & IP’. The Delhi High Court had officially invited Dr. Suchitra Ella, Managing Director of Bharat Biotech, a pharmaceutical company in India to speak at the event. As can be noted from the video recording, Dr. Ella’s speech was mostly about the COVID vaccines her company had developed.
I was surprised at this choice of the Delhi High Court to invite Bharat Biotech because the company was an active litigant before the court at the time. I know this because at that time, I was litigating against Bharat Biotech before the Delhi High Court over the denial of my requests for information under the Right to Information Act, 2005 by the government. In other years, Bharat Biotech has been involved in other litigation, including IP disputes, before the Delhi High Court. I had three petitions pending before the Delhi High Court at the time. The first petition was regarding the MoU between ICMR and Bharat Biotech to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. The second pertained to the grant made by the government funding agency – BIRAC – to Bharat Biotech and one another company for the development of three more vaccines for COVID-19. The third pertained to the purchase agreement between the Government of India and the vaccine manufacturers from whom it purchased the two COVID vaccines used in vaccinations drives on the Indian population. (I have a longer piece on why that information is of public significance and why I withdrew that case last month.)
But returning to the event – one of the main speakers apart from Dr. Suchitra Ella was Justice Pratibha Singh, who coincidentally was hearing the three writ petitions that I filed, challenging orders of CIC decisions denying me access to the information that I had sought from the government. Other judges of the High Courts and one judge of the Supreme Court, were also participating at the event as speakers. My petitions were before Justice Singh for a period of seven months till mid-2023, after which the roster of the court changed (this is routine in the High Court) and my case rotated before other judges. During this period, the petitions were argued before Justice Singh on a couple of occasions during which Bharat Biotech’s lawyer made a series of false allegations against me and the court even noted down one of these allegations in the order. (My rebuttal can be read over here.) The court then also asked Bharat Biotech to reply to an application I filed informing it that the company’s allegations as recorded by the court in its order were factually incorrect.
Now the question is should the Delhi High Court be inviting executives of pharmaceutical companies who are active litigants before it for official events on the premises of the court? While there is a code of ethics for judges which cautions judges that “The behaviour and conduct of members of the higher judiciary must reaffirm the people’s faith in the impartiality of the judiciary.”, I am unaware of any particular code of ethics for “High Courts” as an institution.
As a litigant at the time before the Delhi High Court, I must admit that I was un-nerved by the sight of the opposing party being invited to an official event of the High Court to participate at an event being attended by the judge hearing my case. At the time, the thought of withdrawing my petitions did cross my mind, but I did not do so then. I ultimately withdrew my case only last month for different reasons because of which I am writing on this issue only in March, 2025. To be clear, I am not making allegations of bias against Justice Singh and to be fair to her she did come down heavily on the government in another petition I had filed when it became clear that the government was clearly stalling my query for a missing inquiry committee report. Rather, the issue here is regarding the Delhi High Court as an institution inviting a litigant for its official event and having said litigant felicitated by a judge of the Supreme Court (At the 1 hour 3 minute mark of the video). It is an honour to be invited by the High Court and felicitated by a judge of the Supreme Court. When that honour is extended to specific litigants, it affects the image of institutional neutrality that the High Court is expected to be conveyed to all litigants. This is best avoided.
I do think it is important to have this conversation on judicial propriety and conferences with industry participation. The issue of conferences on intellectual property and participation of judges in these conferences has a thorny past in India. Around fifteen years ago in 2010, there was a massive controversy over a conference organised by the George Washington University on IP law in India. Some NGOs had accused GWU of using its conference to lobby with judges in the country. SpicyIP had written about that controversy over here. There was another occasion on which some NGOs cited Justice Dalveer Bhandari’s participation at a conference organised by the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPOA) to basically force his recusal from the Novartis-Glivec case before the Supreme Court. I wrote at the time defending Justice Bhandari, over here.
I for one do not think that there should be a bar against judges participating in conferences sponsored by industry or academic conferences where industry representatives may be speaking, as long as there are no discussions on active cases. Conferences are a good place to exchange views in a less adversarial setting and a well-curated conference may help broaden the minds of judges by exposing them to opposing viewpoints. Trying to curb judges from attending conferences is like trying to control the newspapers and books read by a judge – pointless. That said, perception still matters. A judge attending too many industry-sponsored conferences is bound to raise eyebrows amongst the legal community, especially in India. Even worse is when a judge attends these conferences at the cost of holding court.
If, however I had to draw a line, I would draw it at High Courts organising their own events where industry players are official invitees. This needs to be avoided as far as possible because it directly affects the perception of the court in the public eye, especially if the industry players are litigants before the court. I think the Restatement of Judicial Ethics and Values needs to be amended to state this in writing. I am keen on knowing what other readers think of this issue – feel free to drop a comment below.