SOUMEN SEN, J. - (1.) The Court: The plaintiff is the registered owner of the word mark 'AASHIRVAAD' in class 30. The plaintiff holds several registration for word device 'AASHIRVAAD' which is evident from the Certificates of Registrations annexed to the petition being annexures c, c1 and c2. Apart from the aforesaid trade mark registrations, the petitioner has also obtained registration and made applications in respect of various trade dresses, get up, packaging, labels bearing the trade mark 'AASHIRVAAD'. The petitioner claims that since the adoption of the mark 'AASHIRVAAD' in the year 2002, the petitioner has been continuously and consistently manufacturing and marketing a variety of products in the food segment in India and abroad through an unparalleled network or authorized distributors, stockists, dealers and retailers. The petitioner has given the turn over of its products including the expenses incurred towards advertisement and promotion of 'AASHIRVAAD' in paragraph 8 to 14 of the petition. The petitioner contends that the petitioner's trade mark 'AASHIRVAAD' has become distinctive of the petitioner's good and it is exclusively associated in the midst of dealers, salespersons, purchasing consumers and all other persons in the relevant trade and mark solely with the petitioner.
(2.) In or about January, 2017 the petitioner came to know that the respondent no.1 is marketing and selling rice under the trade mark 'AASHIRWAD' in and around Delhi. The petitioner also came across hoarding in New Delhi advertising rice product under the trade mark 'AASHIRWAD', a spelling variant of the impugned mark. On conducting a search on the website maintained by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the petitioner found that the respondent no.1 was incorporated as a company on August 1, 2016 with Mr.Sajjan Kumar Garg (respondent no.3) and Mrs.Sangeeta Garg as Directors of the said company. The record available on the website of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs shows that the proprietorship firm of Sajjan kumar Garg was taken over by respondent no.1 pursuant to an agreement dated December 2, 2016. The search carried out by the petitioner on the internet search engine Google shows that the respondent no.1 is selling rice under the trade mark 'GREEN INDIA' in the wave page 'https://www.indiamart. com/ greenindiaoverseas / profile.html'. The respondent no.1 claims 'GREEN INDIA' to be its flagship brand recognized in India with a strong presence in the market. The aforesaid webpage also indicates that the respondent no.1 deals in other brands like 'Kitchen Champion' besides the impugned mark. The petitioner after further search on the internet ascertained that apart from Green India 'Basmati Rice' which is a principal brand, the said respondents also use other trade marks like 'Kitchen Champion', 'Kinoni' and 'Hans Cook' besides the impugned mark. Though the respondents claim to be using 'AASHIRWAAD' since in the year 1988 on some of its products no trade mark application relating to such mark and/or its spelling variations has been filed by the respondents. The respondents on the contrary, proclaim the trade mark 'Green India' to be their principal and primary page as would be evident from the website of the respondent no.1. The petitioner contends that not only the respondents used/adopted the impugned mark and/or its spelling variations which are phonetically identical to the Petitioner's trade mark 'AASHIRVAAD' for advertising and selling basmati rice, but in their websites and in the online portals www.indiamart.com and www.tradeindia.com, they have has also used the trade mark 'AASHIRVAAD', which is identical to the petitioner's registered trade mark "AASHIRVAAD", to refer to their products. This in itself indicates the malafide intention of the Respondents to mislead the consumers and pass off its goods as those of the Petitioner's.
(3.) The adoption and use of the impugned mark and/or any of its spelling variations by the Respondents which is identical and/or deceptively similar to Petitioner's registered trade mark 'AASHIRVAAD' amounts to infringement of the Petitioner's statutory rights in the said trade mark which have been continuously and extensively used by the Petitioner since the year 2002. The Petitioner's rights are being violated.;