Plaintiff Ordered to Pay Rs 50Lakh for obtaining Injunction in Trademark Infringement suit by Concealing Facts
Plaintiff Ordered to Pay Rs 50Lakh for obtaining Injunction in Trademark Infringement suit by Concealing Facts
The plaintiff, Shoban Salim Thakur, proprietor of M/s Family Footwear, had engaged in “gross suppression of material facts” and had “deliberately and systematically played fraud upon the Court” to get an interim order against two Delhi-based traders; Justice Arif Doctor held.
In a stern order against litigants who misuse the judicial process, the Bombay High Court has directed a plaintiff to pay Rs. 50 lakh as exemplary costs after finding that he obtained an ex parte injunction in a trademark infringement suit by concealing material facts. The plaintiff, Shoban Salim Thakur, proprietor of M/s Family Footwear, had engaged in “gross suppression of material facts” and had “deliberately and systematically played fraud upon the Court” to get an interim order against two Delhi-based traders; Justice Arif Doctor held.
Thakur had instituted the suit seeking a permanent injunction preventing Chaitanya Enterprises and Sonu Shah, proprietor of Sonu Enterprises, from using a mark allegedly similar to his registered trademark. The Court on June 30 granted an ex parte injunction restraining the defendants from manufacturing or selling footwear under the mark in question, after which the court receiver seized several consignments belonging to the defendants.
The Court was subsequently moved by the defendants to vacate the injunction, alleging suppression of crucial facts. It was revealed that Thakur’s trademark registration under Class 25 was territorially restricted to Maharashtra and that the defendants had been prior users of their mark since April 2022 and that Thakur had taken contradictory stands before the Trademarks Registry; it was revealed during the hearing. These were ‘three critical facts’ that the plaintiff had not disclosed; Justice Doctor noted.
The Court reportedly observed, “The deliberate and selective withholding of such material… is, in my view, clearly a fraud which has been played on this Court by the Plaintiff only to obtain the ex parte ad interim order.”
Dismissing the plaintiff’s plea that the omissions were inadvertent, the Court reportedly said, “To even suggest this would, in my view, be an affront to the Court, and to condone such ‘inadvertence’ would amount to putting a premium on dishonesty.”
Even after the concealment was brought to light, Thakur made no effort to limit the injunction to Maharashtra, the Court also noted. Instead, he filed multiple affidavits alleging contempt against the defendants to “ensure that the ex parte ad interim order continued.” This conduct was found to be aggravating by Justice Doctor who observed that the plaintiff’s actions had effectively brought the defendants’ business ’to a standstill’.
The Court invoked Section 35 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, as amended by the Commercial Courts Act,2015 and imposed exemplary costs of Rs. 50 lakh, directing the plaintiff to pay Rs. 25 lakh each to the two defendants within four weeks.
