In accordance with Rule 45 of the Trade Marks Rules 2017 (Rules) an opponent must file its evidence by affidavit within two months of being served the applicant's counter-statement, failing which the opposition is deemed abandoned under Rule 45(2). Whether this two-month period is strictly mandatory, or merely directory and subject to the Registrar's discretion under Section 131 of the Trade Marks Act 1999 (Act), has become a sharply disputed question in Indian trademark law. Three High Courts have ruled on it over the last two and a half years, and their answers have been far from consistent.

The Delhi High Court was the first to rule on the question, and it took the most rigorous view. In Sun Pharma Laboratories Ltd v Dabur India Ltd & Anr (Sun Pharma), decided 9 February 2024, a Single Judge held that Rule 45 marked a deliberate departure from its predecessor, Rule 50 of the Trade Marks Rules 2002, which had let the Registrar extend the evidence period "unless the Registrar otherwise directs". Since that discretion is absent from the 2017 Rules, the Court found the two-month period mandatory and non-extendable. A Division Bench of the same court went further still in Mahesh Gupta v Registrar of Trademarks & Anr (Mahesh Gupta), decided on 13 March 2024, holding that "deemed abandonment...follows as an inexorable statutory sequitur" when evidence is filed late, and declining to read any general power to extend time into the Rules.

The Bombay High Court took a contrary view. In Black Diamond Motors Pvt Ltd v Registrar of Trade Marks & Anr (Black Diamond Motors), decided on 17 June 2026, the Court held that Rule 45 cannot be read in isolation from Rule 48, which gives the Registrar unrestricted authority to admit additional evidence "on such terms as to costs or otherwise as he may think fit". If Rule 45 were truly mandatory, the Court reasoned, Rules 47 and 48 would hold little practical value for an opponent. It further held that treating a missed deadline as fatal to the underlying opposition "would be truly absurd and in direct conflict with the substantive rights created under Section 21 and Section 57" of the Act (emphasis supplied), and it restricted the deeming fiction under Rule 45(2) to its narrow procedural function.

The Madras High Court initially aligned itself with Bombay's approach. In Kangaro Industries (Regd) v V-Guard Industries & Anr (Kangaro Industries), decided 21 August 2025, a Single Judge overturned the Registrar's refusal to extend time, reviving a nine-year-old opposition on the basis that Section 131 could remedy the delay. That ruling did not survive appeal: on 30 July 2026, a Division Bench in V-Guard Industries v Kangaro Industries reversed the Single Judge, holding that the two-month deadline is strict and mandatory, and that Section 131, read with Rule 109, gives the Registrar no power to extend it. Madras thus shifted from the Bombay camp to the Delhi camp in under a year, leaving Bombay the lone dissenting voice among the three High Courts.

This is a genuine, unresolved split, with no Supreme Court ruling yet. For corporate counsel managing brand portfolios, it is far more than an abstract disagreement. Opposition and rectification proceedings are heard by a single, nationally centralised Registry, but its orders can only be appealed to the High Court with territorial jurisdiction over the relevant branch. The outcome of an opposition can therefore depend on which of the Registry's five branches—Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, or New Delhi—handles the case. In Chennai or New Delhi, an opponent filing evidence three days late risks losing the opposition outright; the same delay in Mumbai, under Bombay's reasoning, need not be fatal.

The disagreement in doctrine centres on how Rule 45, Rule 48, and Section 131 relate to one another. Delhi and Madras read the Rules' departure from the more flexible 2002 language as a deliberate move to remove the Registrar's discretion entirely. Bombay takes a structural view of the same silence, asking what function Rule 47 (the applicant's reply evidence) and Rule 48 would serve if Rule 45 had already shut the door on late evidence. Both readings are textually defensible, and it remains unclear which will prevail when a High Court finally resolves the conflict. Notably, none of the three decisions engages with the others' reasoning on Rule 47, suggesting that whichever bench settles this will need to read Rules 45 through 48 together rather than Rule 45 in isolation.

Leaving the split unresolved carries a real cost. Parties to a contested opposition, and the lawyers structuring settlement or licensing talks around it, must now weigh litigation risk that varies by forum, at a stage meant to turn on procedure rather than merits. A brand owner conducting due diligence before an acquisition or licensing deal can no longer assume a pending opposition against a target's mark will be treated uniformly across the country; the filing branch and its supervisory High Court materially affect the risk attached to that mark.

Until the Supreme Court or the Central Government intervenes, practitioners would be prudent to treat the Rule 45 deadline as strictly mandatory regardless of branch, given that Delhi and Madras—both high-volume jurisdictions—currently enforce it strictly, and to file any extension request well within the two-month window rather than at the last moment. Whichever view eventually prevails, this split is the clearest sign yet that the shortened timeframes of the Trade Marks Rules 2017 have outpaced the doctrinal clarity needed to apply them consistently across India.