Recently, the High Court of Karnataka rejected the appeal that was filed against the ex-parte order of injunction, which was made absolute against Forbes Technovative by the Commercial Court. The suit was filed by Eureka Forbes to restrain the defendants from manufacturing, marketing, permitting, and other acts of using or supplying their AMC services, counterfeit filters, motors, electrical spares to anyone by wrongfully using the trademark and passing off the copyrighted work “Eureka Forbes – Your friends for life” “Eureka Forbes Home Store” “Aqua Care” Aqua Guard” “Aqua Sure” which is confusingly similar to their registered trademarks.
The respondent, Eureka Forbes, markets water purifiers, air purifiers, vacuum cleaners and other products and is a registered owner of several trademarks and copyrights. The appellants were stated to be infringing the respondent’s trademarks and passing off of the respondent’s brand. They were posing as the respondent’s service agents, seeking AMC (annual maintenance contracts) from the respondent’s existing customers and fixed/offered defective/counterfeit parts. The suit was moved, and an ex-parte injunction order against the appellants was passed, which was thereafter made absolute.
The basis of the appeal was that the injunction order was wrongly confirmed as the appellant was an independent entity who was carrying out AMC of water purifiers and purchased filter units from independent manufacturers. Another ground of appeal was that there are separate causes of action with regard to infringement of trademark, passing off, and use of respondent’s database for procuring business by the appellants and such causes of action cannot be included in one consolidated suit.
The respondent’s counsel contended that the appellants were indeed infringing the respondent’s trademarks, and First Information Reports (FIRs) were registered with regard to the theft of the respondent’s database, which contained details of their customers for fraudulent use. It was alleged that appellants were actively deceiving the respondent’s customers by pretending to be the respondent themselves or their agents to secure AMCs, and substandard/faulty parts were being used for servicing, which prejudiced the respondent’s goodwill and put the health of the general public at risk. It was further pleaded that the appellant also attempted to secure trademark registration for “Forbes Technovative Private Limited”, which was rejected.
The High Court took into account both sides’ contentions and concluded that the scope of the relief sought in the plaint and its admissibility is to be decided by the Trial Court. However, when deciding the interlocutory application for an injunction, the court can arrive at prima facie satisfaction as to the tenability of the reliefs sought in the plaint.
The High Court observed that the injunction order has been passed by the court in its discretion and the appeal against such order can be admitted, i.e., the Appellate Court may interfere only if the said injunction order is arbitrary, capricious and perverse. However, there was nothing on record to showcase that the Commercial Court had exercised discretion arbitrarily or perversely. Thus, the appeal was not admitted and dismissed.
This order reiterates that an order passed by the court should not be interfered with unless there are justifiable grounds to assess/believe that the order against which an appeal is filed before the Appellate Court was indeed arbitrary, capricious and perverse. However, in case nothing of such degree is demonstrated by the appellant, the order passed by the initial court who had arrived at/passed the same based on their discretion should not be interfered with.
