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Justice Surendra P. Tavade of the Bombay High Court on Thursday restrained the sale, circulation and distribution of aviator industrialist Vijaypat Singhania’s autobiography: An Incomplete Life. Singhania, 83, former chairperson of the Raymond Group, is embroiled in a legal battle with his estranged son Gautam Singhania and the Raymond Company over the release of the book.

The Raymond company had approached the High Court claiming that Vijaypat Singhania had "surreptitiously" released the 232-page book, and hence claimed urgent relief. It is contended that in 2019, Raymond Ltd and its chairman Gautam Singhania had filed suits in a Thane district sessions court and a civil court in Mumbai, seeking injunction against the book claiming its contents were defamatory. In lieu of the same in April 2019, the Thane court had granted an injunction on the release of the book.

Senior Advocate Tushad Kapoor, along with lawyers Karthik Nayyar, Krish Kalra, Rushab Kumar, Eram Qureshi and Siddharth Puthoor for the Raymond Ltd sought direction to restrain the current publisher Macmillan Publishers India Pvt Ltd and distributor Amazon India Ltd from further distributing, selling or making available the book to public at large. The company said that the respondents in wilful disregard to the court orders have already published the book and the same is available for sale in the market. They added that as the Thane court was shut for Diwali vacation, the company approached the vacation bench of the HC seeking urgent hearing.

The High Court noted that:

”It appears that the Respondent No. 3 has published autobiography in spite of injunction order passed against him. The said book is ofered for sale through Amazon by digitally and by hard copy. The said action is required to be stop because the injunction order is running against the Respondents. 4. I am of the considered opinion that the further damage is required to be averted by issuing the injunction order as prayed for.”

Hence, the Court allowed the prayers seeking respondents “to cease and desist from advertising, displaying, writing, editing, printing, authoring, selling, offering for sale, further distribution, selling, or otherwise make available directly or indirectly the purported autobiography with any statements relating to the petitioner, pending the appeal before Thane District Court, which had continued interim injunction

Case Title: Raymond Limited V. Dr. Vijaypat Singhania & Ors