Bangalore: A Bangalore-based company on July 25 claimed to have filed the first case against an electronic governance project in India.

Antares Systems Limited, operating in the electronic tendering product space, has filed an injunction application in Delhi High Court, praying that C1 India Limited and Andhra Pradesh government be restrained from infringing the company's copyright in its electronic tendering software product "Tenderwizard", a senior executive of the firm said.

Antares' senior vice president R Kamath told reporters that it has been alleged in the plaint, filed on July 21, that C1 teamed up as a consortium with Antares along with Microsoft and Compaq as partners, for joint bidding of the e-procurement initiative of the Andhra Pradesh government.

Thereafter, the plaint charged that C1 copied and reverse engineered the Antares' software and went ahead with the deployment on winning the tender after "dumping" the Antares.

According to Kamath, Antares has sought permanent injunction restraining C1 and Andhra Pradesh government from proceeding ahead with the initiative.

When the case came up for hearing, the court directed C1 and Andhra Pradesh government to file their written statement within one week after they sought time, and also to Antares to file its application within one week thereafter, he said.

The matter has been adjourned to August 13 for arguments on the injunction application, Kamath said.

PTI