V GOVINDAN Vs. E M GOPALAKRISHNA KONE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant in this case is one V. Govindan, the first defendant in O. S. No. 5 of 1948 on the file of the District Judge, Madurai. He was the proprietor of Sakti Karyalayam of Madras, and published an English-English Tamil Dictionary, Ex. A. 2, in 1947. The second defendant one T.N. Subramanian of Madras (who has not appealed) was its compiler. The plaintiff E.M. Gopalakrishna Kone, a publisher of Mathurai, had published in 1932 itself, an English-English Tamil dictionary called the Excelsior Junior School Dictionary, the predecessor of Ex. A. 1, compiled by one K.V. Subba Iyer, a retired District Educational Officer. He sued the appellant and T.N. Subramanian, the second defendant, who compiled Ex. A, 2 for the appellant, for an injunction restraining them and their servants from editing, publishing or selling any of the copies of the Dictionary, Ex. A. 2, and for directing them to render true and proper accounts regarding the publication and sale of the dictionary, Ex. A. 2, alleged to constitute an infringement of his copyright in Ex. A. 1, and for costs.

(2.) The defendant set up various defences, like Ex. A. 2 being an original compilation by the second defendant for the first defendant and not amounting to any-infringement of Ex. A 1; Ex. A. 1 itself being a common mechanical thing not capable of having any copyright; an injunction being unthinkable, in the circumstances, seeing the commonness of dictionaries and inevitable sameness of most of the words and meanings in all the dictionaries; the unjustifiability of asking for accounts in such matters, etc.

(3.) The lower Court framed the following issues: