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Delhi HC: Ex Parte Ad-Interim Order Granted to Brand ‘Apna’ for Protecting Trademark

Savvy Thakur

Published on: 04 December 2022 at 21:10 IST

The Delhi High Court as of late passed an ex-parte request shielding the brand name Apna from being utilized by deceitful pursuit of employment sites.

According to Justice Jyoti Singh, there was a “balance of convenience” in favour of the plaintiffs, Apnatime Tech Pvt., and there was a “prima facie case” for the grant of an ex parte ad-interim injunction.

The plaintiff, which helps people find jobs on their platform under the name www.apna.co and through their mobile app “ApnaJob Search,” received a complaint from a customer alleging that she had been conned out of a significant amount of money by registering on a website called www.apnajobs.in.

The plaintiff claims that the website approached customers pretending to be them, used the same logo, and was a mirror image of their own.

In addition, it was asserted that this website was taken offline in September 2022, prompting the emergence of www.apnajobs.org, a website posing as the previous one and operating in the same manner.

As a result, the plaintiff filed the lawsuit for damages, copyright infringement, passing off, website suspension, and other claims before the Court against the defendants.

The Court restricted the defendant, Anik Dev Nath, from using the plaintiff’s website layout, user interface, arrangement, and/or any other artistic work in a manner that could constitute an infringement of the copyright of the plaintiff’s work after concluding that the balance in convenience was in Apnatime Tech’s favor.

The defendant was also prohibited by the court from using the name “Apna,” with or without the prefix “Jobs,” as a trademark, trade name, or domain name, as this could amount to misrepresenting the plaintiff’s services and businesses.

The Court also instructed the domain name registrars to maintain the status quo and suspend the domain names www.apnajobs.in and www.apnajobs.org.

The Court also instructed the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Department of Telecommunications to issue notifications requesting that various internet and telecommunications service providers that are registered under them block access to the domain names www.apnajobs.in and www.apnajobs.org.