Mihika Saraf and Vishvesh Gupta The evolution of corporate governance has increasingly strived for transparency and accountability through its constant changes in the Companies Act, 2013 which renders numerous rights and benefits to businesses but also exposes them to jeopardy. After the principle of lifting of the corporate veil came into force, directors and officers Continue reading
Read MoreArka Biswas Recently, on 30 October 2023, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), by notification in the Official Gazette, brought the Companies (Amendment) Act, 2020 into force; which will allow Indian companies to list their securities on foreign stock exchanges directly and will also allow the companies incorporated outside India to list on Indian stock Continue reading
Read MoreMansi Ahuga and Sameeksha Dua For aeons, simpletons and scholars alike have argued the morality of condemning a perpetrator to capital punishment. Nevertheless, scarce debate has ever been done on whether death row prisoners deserve treatment for their mental health issues. Though of paramount importance, this issue seems to have escaped the eyes of the Continue reading
Read MoreIsha Tiwari In recent years, Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) has become a vital part of a person’s daily life. Nonetheless, it has also increased the potential risk of crimes. AI has the scope of changing the way how a person lives, works or plays. It has been used in various sectors to automate tasks done by Continue reading
Read MoreJanhavi Tripathi and Harshita Gupta The 21st century is a century of innovation and technology. The world is witnessing an industrial revolution wherein, artificial intelligence (hereinafter ‘AI’) is blurring the line between human creation and artificial creation. The impact of AI has left no industry unaffected. In the realm of music, the emergence of Voice Continue reading
Read MoreAjitesh Arya The pharmaceutical sector, characterized by intensive research and development (R&D) efforts and evolving diseases, relies heavily on the continuous development of new medicines. Patent protection incentivizes drug developers by granting them a period of monopoly over production and distribution in exchange for disclosure. However, unscrupulous practices, such as patent evergreening and pay for Continue reading
Read MoreAditi Verma and Aman Yuvraj Choudhary The Competition (Amendment) Act, 2023, overhauls the Competition Act, 2002 to bring it up to speed with more mature jurisdictions. It brings about a paradigm shift by making the penalty under Section 27 calculable upon global turnover rather than relevant turnover. This is to bring gatekeeper entities like the Continue reading
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Introduction The fintech revolution in India is the product of intentional regulatory innovation, with the regulatory sandbox concept at its core. This framework serves as a testing ground for financial products, fundamentally reshaping India’s financial ecosystem. A regulatory sandbox, in essence, constitutes a controlled environment wherein firms may evaluate novel financial products with actual consumers Continue reading
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Exciting developments are underway for Geographical Indications in India, with over 60 products receiving the Geographical Indications (“GI”) tag recently. This is particularly noteworthy as it marks the largest number of successful GI applications in a single instance since the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 Act was implemented in 2003.
The international GI framework is quite diverse, and jurisdictions have adopted combinations of protections best suitable to them and their global trade. Depending on where you are, the framework covers many interesting subject matters ranging from agricultural and food products to wines. As far as a combined reading of the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 and The Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Rules, 2002 are concerned, it is used to identify “agricultural, natural or manufactured goods or any goods of handicraft or of industry and includes food stuff originating in a definite territory in India.” The legal protection granted through a successful registration certificate lasts for 10 years and needs to be renewed failing which the GI tag may be revoked. For an application to be successful, the applicant must be an association of persons, producers, organization or authorities established by or under the law. The key factor is that the applicant should represent the interests of the producers. This is a significant departure from the otherwise individual creator notion of IP laws.
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A verdict dated 14 May 2024 by Justice Bela M Trivedi and Justice Pankaj Mithal has declared that services provided by advocates shall not be covered under the Consumer Protection Act (“CPA”), 2019. This judgment has, thus, questioned the very basis of the application of the CPA to medical services as laid down in the V.P. Shantha judgement. The bench opined that the legislature could never have intended the Act to cover professional services, which are already governed by respective professional councils. The ruling raised questions of procedural propriety about a partial referral to a larger bench and judgment on hypothetical premises. It is at this juncture that differentiation between the legal and the medical professions had to be brought out, concerning standards of care. The Court referred the issue for reconsideration to a larger bench, without clarifying if the referral pertains to the whole judgment of Shantha or only the question of including professionals under the CPA that is under scrutiny. The case epitomizes the dilemma of balancing consumer protection with the maintenance of professional standards. It calls for review to guarantee a regime both of professional accountability and of consumer rights in dynamic consumer protection amidst technological advancement and global networking.
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