I must first point out that, for the English court to come to the assistance of an Indian court, the normal process is for the English court to do so by enforcing a judgment of the Indian court. However, as the present proceedings have demonstrated, that is not possible here. An attempt was made by Airbus to persuade Colman J. to enforce, or at least to recognise, the Indian judgment; but he declined to do so, and Airbus has not appealed from that part of Colman J.'s decision. So Airbus is relying simply on the English court's power of itself, without direct reliance on the Indian court's decision, to grant an injunction in this case where, unusually, the English jurisdiction has no interest in, or connection with, the matter in question. I am driven to say that such a course is not open to the English courts because, for the reasons I have given, it would be inconsistent with comity. In a world which consists of independent jurisdictions, interference, even indirect interference, by the courts of one jurisdiction with the exercise of the jurisdiction of a foreign court cannot in my opinion be justified by the fact that a third jurisdiction is affected but is powerless to intervene. The basic principle is that only the courts of an interested jurisdiction can act in the matter; and if they are powerless to do so, that will not of itself be enough to justify the courts of another jurisdiction to act in their place. Such are the limits of a system which is dependent on the remedy of an anti-suit injunction to curtail the excesses of a jurisdiction which does not adopt the principle, widely accepted throughout the common law world, of forum non conveniens.”
