The High Court of Delhi on Thursday dismissed a contempt application filed by the Bennett Coleman Group against Republic TV and Arnab Goswami over the use of tagline ‘Nation wants to know’.
The Single-Judge Bench of Justice C. Hari Shankar on Wednesday dismissed the petition as withdrawn after Bennett Coleman, a flagship company of Times Group which owns Times Now news channel, sought permission to withdraw it.
Filed under Order 39 Rule 2A, the petition sought initiation of contempt of court proceedings against ARG Outlier Media Private Limited and its Directors for violating an order passed in 2020 over the use of the tagline, ‘Nation wants to know’.
The petition accused the Defendant of infringing its trademark ‘News Hour’. The suit further sought direction to Republic TV to restrain from adopting the above tagline.
Earlier on October 23, 2020, while hearing a suit for injunction, the High Court had refused to pass an interim order against usage of the tagline.
However, the High Court had directed the Defendants (Republic TV/Arnab Goswami) to maintain accounts of usage of the tagline in case the same was used as a trade mark in relation to goods/services, and file the same by way of an affidavit once every six months.
Bennett Coleman and Company Limited (BCCL) had filed a contempt application, alleging violation of the order dated October 23, 2020 by ARG by using the tagline ‘Nation wants to know’ as a trade mark, and not maintaining and filing the accounts of such usage as directed by the Court.
The petitioner contended that the Defendants were using the tagline to associate it with Arnab Goswami, thereby using it as a trade mark.
Appearing for the ARG group, Senior Advocate Malvika Trivedi submitted that the order dated October 23, 2020 recorded that the Defendants were permitted to use the tagline as part of speech/presentation of news.
It was further submitted that similar screenshots as relied upon by the plaintiff in their contempt application were placed before the Court earlier at the time of hearing the injunction application also.
However, the court had taken a view that whether or not the said tagline was a trade mark could only be determined after leading detailed evidence.
Advocate Trivedi further argued that there was no wilful disobedience of the October 2020 verdict, and that there was no occasion to file the affidavit as contemplated in the order since the tagline was only being used as part of presentation of news and not as trademark in relation to goods/ services.
Advocates Hemant Singh and Mamta Rani Jha appeared for the plaintiff, while the Defendants were represented by Senior Advocate Trivedi, along with Advocates Rahul Tyagi and Diya Dutta.
(Case title: Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd vs ARG Outlier Media Pvt Ltd & Ors)