Mahindra And Mahindra Limited & Anr vs Diksha Sharma Proprietor of Mahindra
Decided on: 16 March, 2026
Coram: Tushar Rao Gedela
Introduction
On 16 March 2026, a single bench of the Delhi High Court, in Mahindra and Mahindra Limited v. Diksha Sharma, provided a decisive turning point in the evolution of dynamic injunction jurisprudence in India. The case germinated from a mundane trademark infraction case, due to the misuse of the “MAHINDRA” mark by packers and movers who deceptively operate similar domain names as MAHINDRA AND MAHINDRA. However, the Court’s vehement refusal to entertain the dynamic injunction architecture that extends the remedies beyond the life of the suit is the point of interest in this case.
The legal war against digital piracy has always been aided with dynamic injunctions to tackle the rogue websites that resort to pseudonym and alphanumeric mirror sites redirects in order to counter the conventional static court orders. But the malicious growth of such a remedy has caused serious constitutional tension with the basic right to freedom of speech and expression, eventually resulting into a judicial paradigm shift in 2026.
In order to prevent right holders from falling into the trap of getting embroiled in an endless vicious cycle of initiating fresh suits for every new mutant URL, the Indian courts have devised dynamic injunctions starting from the famous case of UTV Software Communication Ltd. V. 1337X.to. This has enabled the extension of the former blocking order to the newly discovered mirror websites merely by filing an application before the Joint Registrar of the Court.
There has been further development in dealing with piracy concerning live sports telecasts. In the case of Star India Pvt, Ltd. v. IPTV Smarter Pro, there has been granted what is known as superlative injunction allowing the broadcast company to perform domain and mobile application blocking without even filing any affidavit or undergoing any legal proceedings.
Eventually, this caused an unbalance which was unconscionable since the open-ended nature of these orders clashed directly with freedom of expression of ideas online.
The autonomous dynamic orders entailed a risk of over-blocking, harming legitimate websites, independent forums, or educational platforms, sharing IP addresses or synonymous and homonymous nomenclature, with a single stroke, without prior notice.
Further, there is a practical absence of adversarial process, since the operators of rogue websites seldom appear in court to defend themselves. When blocking remedies are streamlined administratively, courts lose opportunity to verify the necessity of blocking, eroding the role of due process.
Factual Background
The present judgment is likely to put an end to this trend, thus acting as a curb on the abuse of administratively expeditious blocking orders.
Firstly, the Court dealt with Mahindra’s effort for safeguarding post-decree elasticity via a dynamic process of granting injunction. The court followed the strict rule of functus officio, that is, once the court makes the decree, its jurisdiction on that matter comes to an end except in specific circumstances as defined under CPC, that is, the court shall not have power to grant interim order in that case because once a decree is passed, any interim order that was passed is automatically merged with the decree.
Secondly, the suggestion that the Joint Registrar can take care of such infringement was not acceptable because it is against CPC.
Thirdly, the court cautioned that automatic renewal of the injunction would amount to undermining the doctrine of finality which is one of the basic elements of civil litigation.
Analysis
This judgment doesn’t disable courts from issuing dynamic injunctions where there is an actual need for them; but it places post-judgment restrictions on them.
The implications of the above-mentioned case law are diverse, in today’s rapidly moving online infringement environments, rights owners may now have to resort to new processes and executions rather than simply extending the existing injunction through much easier autonomous means. Undoubtedly, this would increase costs and time involved in curbing rogue online platforms.
This judgment sheds light on the drawbacks of open-ended injunctions against unidentified third parties. An ongoing injunction that could apply to new identified parties using modified versions of the “MAHINDRA” mark was discouraged and the Court refused to grant any such decrees that might end up being blanket injunctions against parties that were never before the Court.
Conclusion
The main basis of the reasoning of the Court is that “the interim order of any nature, in particular, an interim injunction order eventually merges and gets subsumed into the final judgment and decree, and hence, loses its independent existence for the exercise of any jurisdiction by any authority, much less a learned Joint Registrar (Judicial), before or after the pronouncement of the judgment. Whence such power or jurisdiction is vested on the Principal Officer of the Court is certainly beyond one’s ken and cannot be found anywhere in the CPC.” The dynamic injunction was used as a means of bridging the gap between civil procedures and intermediate compliance, as it helped in issuing directions that could keep evolving due to changes in the URLs or domain names. In the past, the dynamic injunction helped the courts to issue blocking directions in respect of new URLs.
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Citation – Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd v Diksha Sharma CS(COMM) 209/2023 (Del HC, 16 March 2026)
Author: Akshi Seem, Associate Partner
Co- Author: Akshyat Das, Intern