The High Court of Bombay has refused to grant pre-arrest bail to a man booked for selling substandard goods using the name, trademark & license number of a reputed company that manufactured high density polyethylene pipes used for irrigation purposes.

The Court held that as the accused had blatantly violated trademark & copyright provisions, had also resorted to cheating by getting sub-standard goods manufactured & inducing people into buying them by passing them off as that of a reputed company, his custodial interrogation was necessary.

A single-Judge bench of Justice Sarang Kotwal while hearing the anticipatory bail application of Piyush Ranipa was informed that the applicant had been booked by Mohol police station at Solapur for offences punishable under various section of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Copyright Act, 1957, & Trade Marks Act, 1999, in Dec 2020. The complaint was lodged by the zonal manager of the pipe manufacturing company after he intercepted a consignment of pipes & found that the name, trademark & even license number of his company were used to market sub-standard pipes.

When the application came up for hearing, the lawyer of the accused argued that the offences under which he was booked were bailable.

The bench sought the help of advocate Aniket Nikam as amicus curiae to ascertain whether the offences under which the accused was booked were bailable or non-bailable offences.

After hearing the submissions, the Court observed, “In this case whether there is infringement of Copyright Act attracting punishment under section 63 of the Act; is a matter of investigation, but certainly there appears to be infringement of the trademark registered in the name of the informant’s company. Therefore, commission of offence punishable under section 103 of the Trade Marks Act is clearly made out. The accused have falsely applied the informant’s trademark to their own products & have attempted to sell those products...By their act, the public were induced or an attempt was made to induce the public to buy these products under the impression that they were manufactured by the informant’s company.”

The Court held that custodial interrogation of the accused was required & hence rejected the anticipatory Bail plea. 

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