PANKAJ BHANDARI,J. - (1.) Appellant-defendant has preferred this Civil Misc. Appeal aggrieved by order dated 5.10.2019 passed by Commercial Court No. 1, Jaipur whereby application for temporary injunction filed by the plaintiff-respondent was allowed.
(2.) Briefly stated the facts of the case are that the plaintiff-respondent filed a suit for infringement and passing-off of its registered trademark (LABEL/LOGO) 'NEERAJ' bearing registration No. 1462578. It was pleaded in the plaint that the plaintiff-respondent company is engaged in the business of amongst other things extracting of vegetable and edible oils since incorporation in the year 1994. Petitioner is having various known brands including SCOOTER, SHIV SPECIAL, HANUMAN, CHANCELLOR, CKANAKYA AND NEERAJ. It is pleaded that the trade mark 'Neeraj' was adopted in the year 1998 for edible oil products including mustard oil and Blended Edible Vegetable Oils and that the product is being sold throughout the country and is extremely popular in the North-Western and North-Eastern states of India. It was pleaded that after adopting the trademark 'Neeraj', company created its variants by the name of 'NEERAJ SPECIAL'? and 'NEERAJ PLUS'? and subsequently got the said two trademarks also registered under the Trademarks Act, 1999. 'Neeraj' trademark is bearing registration No. 1462578. The Registration Nos. of 'NEERAJ SPECIAL'? is 3008572 and that of 'NEERAJ PLUS'? is 3008573. It is contended that initially plaintiff-company has a total turn over of more than Rs.4,000 crores w.e.f. 1998 to 2017-2018. It was pleaded that the defendant-company in April 2019 has obtained the trademark 'Nirab' and that 'Neeraj' and 'Nirab' are phonetically identical/deceptively similar and defendant has adopted the said trademark 'Nirab' malafidely with the sole objective to make unlawful gain at the cost of reputation/goodwill of the plaintiff-company.
(3.) It was also pleaded that plaintiff-respondent has been in the business of manufacturing the oil products by the name of 'Neeraj' for last more than 10 years. There is no justification or reason for adopting the name 'Nirab' which is phonetically similar to the word 'Neeraj'. The defendant-company has maliciously applied for registration of a mark which is phonetically so similar that it is likely to create confusion in the mind of the customers which also includes illiterate customers primarily belonging to North-Eastern states of India.;