The Bombay High Court on Tuesday quashed the FIR filed by Sakal Times against Newslaundry Journalist Prateek Goyal.  The Chief administrative officer of Sakal Times, Mahendra Narsinghrao Pisal had registered an FIR against the journalist at a Police station in Pune. 

Mr Pisal had approached the police for registration of the First Information Report on 16/09/2020, claiming that the petitioner committed an offence under Section 103 of the Trademarks Act by falsely applying the trademark of Sakal Group in two articles authored by him and published in the news portal called ‘Newslaundry’. The two articles were published on 27/03/2020 and 11/06/2020. In the said articles the registered trademark of the Sakal Media Group and Sakal Times was shown with a prominence at the top. 

In the article published on 27/03/2020, the heading was ‘The future is bleak: Sakal Times staffers say they have been sacked in violation of Maharashtra order’. In the article published on 11/06/2020, the heading was ‘They wanted to get rid of us: over 50 people laid off as Sakal Times closes down’. 

According to the complainant, Mr Pisal, the articles dated 27/03/2020 and 11/06/2020 were defamatory in nature. He further claimed that the use of the trademark/Logo of Sakal Media Group and Sakal Times amounted to the false application of the trademark and allegedly resulted in an offence under the Trademark Act.

It is pertinent to mention that prior to lodging the complaint, leading to registration of the First Information Report, a legal notice dated 12/06/2020, was sent to the petitioner alleging that the Sakal Media Group was defamed by him and an amount of Rs.65,00,000/- was claimed from him. On 19/06/2020, the petitioner sent a reply to the said legal notice. On 03/09/2020, the Sakal Media Group filed a suit for injunction against the Newslaundry Media Pvt. Ltd, seeking an injunction for removing the said articles from the news portal. The said suit is pending.

Mr. Nikhil Sakhardande, learned Senior Counsel appearing along with Mr. Nipun Katyal, learned Counsel for the petitioner submitted that ingredients of the offence under Section 103 of the aforesaid Act were totally absent in the present case and that, therefore, the First Information Report deserved to be quashed.  The learned Senior Counsel invited attention of this Court to Sections 101, 102 and 103 of the aforesaid Act, as also Sections 29 and 30 thereof to contend that the trade mark of Sakal Media Group was not applied by the petitioner in relation to either any goods or any services, thereby indicating that there was no question of falsely applying the trade mark. It was submitted that if the trademark of Sakal Media Group was used by the petitioner in any manner to show that the news portal in which the articles of the petitioner were published was itself shown as being a news portal of Sakal, then it could be said that the trade mark of Sakal Media Group had been falsely applied, so as to attract the ingredients of the offence under Section 103 of the aforesaid Act. Such being not the case in the present matter argued the Senior Counsel. 

It was further pointed out that the trademark of Sakal Media Group was shown in the articles written by the petitioner and published on the news portal ‘Newslaundry’, only to indicate that those specific articles pertained to the Sakal Media Group. In these circumstances, there was no question of the said trademark being falsely applied to any goods or services, so as to attract the ingredients of an offence under section 103 of the Trademark Act.

On the other hand, Ms Neha Prashant, learned Counsel along with Mr Yashowardhan Deshmuk, learned Counsel appearing for contesting respondent submitted that the admitted facts in the present case demonstrated that ingredients of the offence under Section 103 of the aforesaid Act. By referring to Section 103 of the aforesaid Act, the learned Counsel appearing for Respondent No.2 submitted that in the present case, the petitioner had clearly falsely applied the registered trademark of Sakal Media Group by prominently showing the mark on articles published on the news portal ‘Newslaundry’. 

The learned counsel for the respondent highlighted the fact that when the word ‘Sakal’ was clicked on online search, it led to the said articles authored by the petitioner and published on the news portal ‘Newslaundry’, thereby demonstrating that the offence under Section 103 of the said Act was indeed committed in the present case. 

The High Court examined the definition of the term goods and service mentioned under the trademark Act. It came to the conclusion that the articles authored by the petitioner and published in the news portal ‘Newslaundry’ neither qualify as goods nor as service as defined under Section 2(j) and 2(z) of the aforesaid Act. Sakal Media Group's Trademark used in the articles under contention cannot be said to be in the context of either ‘goods’ or ‘services.

"Merely because an online search for the word ‘Sakal’ led to the aforesaid articles of the petitioner published in the news portal ‘Newslaundry’, does not mean that the registered trade mark of Sakal Media Group was falsely applied to goods or services by the petitioner. At worst, it could be said that such an online search leading to the aforesaid articles might be the subject matter of an injunction suit at the behest of Sakal Media Group due to the contents of the said articles, but, that falls within the realm of a civil dispute that could be raised by the respondent No.2. In fact, respondent No.2 did issue a Notice on behalf of the Sakal Media group and chose to file a suit for injunction before the competent Civil Court, which is admittedly pending," the Court added.