Mumbai News

Bombay HC grants interim relief to Khadi & Village Industries Commission in trademarks case – The Indian Express

The Bombay High Court Wednesday granted interim relief to Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), a statutory commission, by temporarily restraining a Mumbai-based association from using the registered trademark ‘KHADI’ and its ‘Charkha’ logo for any sale of goods or services.

The court said that unless the defendant, Mumbai Khadi and Village Industries Association, is temporarily restrained from further indulging in such conduct, KVIC will suffer grave and irreparable loss, thus, indicating that the balance of convenience is also in favour of KVIC.

A single-judge bench of Justice Manish Pitale on December 14 passed an order in suit by KVIC for interim reliefs regarding its registered trademark ‘KHADI’ and its variants.

The plaintiff KVIC, through senior advocate Birendra Saraf, alleged that by using impugned marks, the defendant has indulged in infringement and passing-off. Saraf submitted that registration of various trademarks of plaintiff dated back to 2014 onwards and that of the user dates back to September 1956.

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He added that KVIC’s trademarks are identified with quality Khadi products, not limited to textile products and the products bearing registered trademarks of the plaintiff have come to be recognised as guarantee for high quality Khadi products. The plaintiff said the registered trademark ‘KHADI’ of the plaintiff is included in the list of well-known trademarks by the office of the Registrar of Trademarks.

KVIC said that one Mumbai Khadi and Village Industries Association was using KVIC registered marks consisting of the word ‘ KHADI’ and depiction of ‘Charkha’ logo in conjunction with its name.

The plaintiff said the word, label and device mark are registered in favour of the KVIC. The KVIC said that it discovered the infringement in December 2021 and in an earlier litigation between two parties, the KVIC had withdrawn a suit in 2021 after the association had given an undertaking in the High Court that they would not sell any KHADI product without a certificate from KVIC. However, the infringement continued and the same was dishonest and in breach of undertaking given to the court, the plaintiff said.

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The defendant association through senior advocate Venkatesh Dhond opposed the KVIC plea and said that its claims were of no consequence as the association was a prior user of the word ‘KHADI’ which they used it from the year 1946.

Justice Pitale observed that the association had approached KVIC for a certificate to sell KHADI products, however, the KVIC received complaints that the cloth being sold by the defendant did not contain Khadi material and the same led to withdrawal of the certificate to the defendant. The association continued selling products despite the certificate being withdrawn under the trademark, which prompted the KVIC to file the earlier suit. The defendant had then given an undertaking stating that it was not selling any product labelled as ‘KHADI’ and said it would not sell any such product without certificate from the KVIC.

The bench held that the KVIC held the registration of word mark ‘KHADI’ along with label and device mark in several classes and it was not limited to cloth or textile products.

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The court noted there was a “prima facie case of infringement and passing off” and observed that unless the association is temporarily restrained from continuing with such a conduct, the plaintiff will suffer “grave and irreparable loss”.

While granting interim relief to the plaintiff, Justice Pitale held, “Prima facie, the plaintiff has made out a strong case in its favour for protection of its proprietary rights as regards the registered trademark and the defendant cannot avoid interim injunction by relying upon Section 34 of the Trademarks Act.”

It rejected the request made by the association to stay the interim order reasoning that it had found the conduct of the defendant “dishonest”.

Source: https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMidmh0dHBzOi8vaW5kaWFuZXhwcmVzcy5jb20vYXJ0aWNsZS9jaXRpZXMvbXVtYmFpL2JvbWJheS1oYy1raGFkaS12aWxsYWdlLWluZHVzdHJpZXMtY29tbWlzc2lvbi10cmFkZW1hcmtzLWNhc2UtODMyNjY4OC_SAQA?oc=5