S.RAVINDRA BHAT, J. - (1.) This judgement will dispose of an application by which directions are sought that till a new chairperson of the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (hereafter referred to as "the board" or "IPAB"), is appointed, the incumbent (whose tenure had been extended by interim orders of this court, up to 31.12.2020) should continue to function as Chairperson.
(2.) The applicant (the International Association for Protection of Intellectual Property [India Group]) had preferred a Writ Petition (WP(C) 1431/2019), which was disposed of by this court by a judgement along with a batch of other petitions and applications on 27th November 2020, in the judgement reported as Madras Bar Association v Union of India, (2020) SCC OnLine SC 962. The applicant seeks extension of the term of the incumbent Chairperson of the board stating that his appointment was made under section 89A of the Trademarks Act, 1999 ("TM Act" hereafter). The applicant urges that Section 184 of the Finance Act, 2017, prescribes the term of office and the conditions of service of Chairperson and members of various tribunals including that of the Board. Section 161 of the Finance Act inserted Section 89A to the TM Act-which stipulates that the term of office of appointments to the board after the date of commencement of the Finance Act would be governed by the provisions of the Section 184 of the said Finance Act. The outer limit prescribing the age limit of the chairperson of the board is 70 years, in terms of Section 184.
(3.) It is contended that in the judgement in Rojer Mathew[2] this court had directed that appointments made to the board preceding the rules framed in 2020 under the Finance Act within (hereafter the 2020 Rules) were governed by the parent enactment. Reliance is placed on the relevant extract of the main judgement of this court in this regard (para 53 [xv]). It is stated that the parent Act in this case is the Trademarks Act (hereafter the TM Act'). In this context, it is contended that since the outer limit of the tenure of the chairperson is 70 years under the parent Act, i.e. the TM Act, the age of 65 years contemplated under Section 86 of that Act no longer applies. [2] Rojer Mathew v. South Indian Bank Ltd., (2020) 6 SCC 1. ;