ISKCON V/S Vishna Foods Pvt Ltd

02 Jul ISKCON V/S Vishna Foods Pvt Ltd

The court did not dismiss either the interim application or the suit but would hear the interim application on merits after the amendments were effected and replies and a rejoinder filed

The present suit is filed by the appellants International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in the Honourable High Court of Bombay before Honourable Justice G.S. Patel, as the respondents are unauthorisedly using the appellants well known abbreviation and mark ISKCON. [Interim Application (L) No. 1913 of 2021 and Interim Application (L) No. 8962 of 2020 in Commercial IP Suit (L) No. 8889 of 2020, Decided On: 03.02.2021]

The appellants took an ad-interim order on 18th December 2020 claiming to have served the respondents. A Clause 14 Petition seeking to combine a cause of action in passing of with the cause of action in infringement was also allowed on that date. On 25th January 2021, the request of the Advocate for the respondents to put an Affidavit in Reply was granted.

The entire plaint proceeds on the footing that the respondents, one Vishna Foods Private Limited is unauthorisedly using the appellants’ well known abbreviation and mark ISKCON. The appellants claim complete proprietary rights over this. The plaint goes on to claim that the respondent’s use is illicit and hence the suit and the interim application.

The appellants submit that there is no doubt that the use of the term ISKCON by the respondent’s amounts to use as a trademark and in any event, it is likely to be taken as being used as a trademark. The appellants submit that by using the impugned mark ISKCON as also the line “conceived by the team of Srila Prabhupada’s ISKCON Bangalore” not only on the impugned goods but also on the website, the respondents were wrongly suggesting and misleading the customers and public at large that the impugned mark ISKCON has been used by the respondents with the permission from ISKCON, Bangalore, which is a branch of the appellants’.

The respondents are therefore called upon to disclose on what basis have they claimed such association along with the details of the alleged team members who have allegedly conceived the idea of given permission/authority to use the impugned mark ISKCON to the respondents. The appellants reiterate that they have not given any permission or license to the respondents to use the said trademark ISKCON.

The appellants submit that there is an ongoing dispute between the appellants and a society registered under the Karnataka Societies Registration Act, 1960 with the name ‘International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Bangalore in so far as the management and properties of the temple in Bangalore and Mysore are concerned, which is presently pending in the Honourable Supreme Court. The court in the present suit highlighted that the appellants only mention the pendency of some disputes in the Supreme Court. The plaint does not mention that the Supreme Court constituted a committee under chairmanship of Mr. Justice RV Raveendran, former Judge of the Supreme Court as chairman, with two additional members, one from each of the two contesting ISKCON units. The plaint also did not disclose that the Bengaluru branch had set up an independent claim to use inter alia the name and to license it, or that the Bengaluru unit had been using the mark for a great many years The plaint would have this court believe that the dispute is only about the management of a temple in Bengaluru and some properties.

The present court concluded that the very least a court of equity expects when asked to grant discretionary relief is complete and honest disclosure of the relevant facts. It can hardly be said so in the present suit. It is not, therefore, as simple as saying that Vishna Foods is an infringer and that its claim to have a license is false (as suggested by the appellants) simply ISKCON Bombay has a dispute pending in the Supreme Court allegedly restricted to a temple and properties with ISKCON Bengaluru. The very least the court would have expected is a disclosure of the Supreme Court orders and then some record of the appellants’ enquiry that the court now is orally told has been made, or must have been made, or was probably made. According to the court none of this inspires any confidence. This is not how orders of the court are to be obtained.

Hence the court asserted that both orders of 18th December 2020 including in the Petition for Leave are forthwith recalled.

The court stated that it was not dismissing either the interim application or the suit and that it would hear the interim application on merits after the amendments were effected and replies and a rejoinder had been filed. Further if the appellants wished to amend the plaint they would have to file a substantive interim application making out a ground.