The Delhi High Court has directed the defendants in Ramada International trademark suit to deposit ₹5 lakh for repeated violation of the injunction order while also issuing a warning about facing civil prison.
The single-judge bench of Justice C. Hari Shankar while adjudicating upon three interlocutory applications, remarked that it is a gross case in which the order of injunction passed by the Court was repeatedly breached by the defendants (Defendant 2 being the sole director of Defendant 1) with absolute impunity.
"Injunction orders passed by Courts cannot be treated as waste paper. The defendants were, apparently, cocking a snook at the Court, by following up the compliance of each injunction, granted by this Court, with a further act of disobedience the very next day or the day after. The plaintiff was, thus, driven to file application after application before this Court, and the Court had to injunct again and again, as though its orders were worth tinsel," the court observed.
The plaintiff Ramada International, Inc. has alleged infringement of its trademark RAMADA by Defendant 1, La-Ramada World Pvt. Ltd. and Defendant 2, a director and majority shareholder in Defendant 1.
Additionally, the plaintiff has also objected to the domain names , and whereunder the defendants were operating the websites https://laramadaworld.com/, http://laramadaworld.net.in and https://laramadaworld.online. It has also been alleged that the name of the hotel operated by Defendant 1, “La Ramada World Resort and Spa” infringed the plaintiff’s registered RAMADA trademark.
The Court stated that finding prima facie merit in the plaintiff’s grievance, it issued summons in the suit under Order XXXIX Rules 1 and 2 of the CPC, and restrained the defendants, their partners, proprietors, etc.
In this backdrop, the court pointed out that despite the defendant having been put on notice regarding the passing of the aforesaid order in accordance with the procedure envisaged by Order XXXIX Rule 3 of the CPC, no steps were taken by the defendant to comply with the directions issued by this Court on 23 September 2021, even in respect of suspension of the impugned domain names.
"The domain names were suspended by the concerned domain name Registrars only on steps in that regard being taken by the plaintiff. The domain name was suspended on 12 October 2021 while the domain names and were suspended on 23 November 2021," it noted.
It mentioned that on 22 November 2021, i.e. a day prior to the suspension of the domain names and , Defendant 2 got a new domain name registered and started a new website www.lrwworld.com , which was identical to the injuncted website laramadaworld.com.
The plaintiff initiated appropriate action and consequently, the new website www.lrwworld.com was injuncted and was suspended on 9 February, 2022 by the domain name registrar. However, Within two days, Defendant 2 proceeded to launch yet another website ‘lrw.co.in’, in the name of another director.
The court later, By order dated 15 March 2022, directed suspension of the websites lrworld.co.in (opened on 23 October 2021) and lrw.co.in (opened on 11 February 2022).
On 8 June 2022, the order was carried into effect and the website www.lrworld.co.in and www.lrw.co.in were suspended yet once again, on the very next day i.e. 9 June 2022, Defendant 2 opened a new website www.lrwworld.co which was identical to injuncted website www.lrwworld.com and again infringed the plaintiff’s registered trademarks.
By order dated 11 July 2022, thie Court directed suspension of this new websites as well. In the meanwhile, vide order dated 15 March 2022, given the circumstances, the Court directed personal presence of Defendant 2 but he did not appear, and thus accordingly, bailable warrants were directed to be issued on 30 May 2022. Defendant 2 remained absent despite the issuance of bailable warrants, whereupon, on 11 July 2022, non-bailable warrants were directed to be issued.
Consequent thereto, Defendant 2 appeared before the Court for the first time on 26 July 2022 and prayed that the direction for issuance of non-bailable warrants be suspended. The Court did so subject to a deposit of ₹ 10 lakhs with the learned Registrar General of this Court within two months.
The Court inter-alia other facts mentioned how the defendants repeatedly defied the injunction order and the same is of serious concern.
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