The Delhi High Court on Thursday held that the plaintiff (HORLICKS LIMITED) have made out a prima face case against ZYDUS WELLNESS PRODUCTS LIMITED of its product “Complan” in their favour and in case no interim injunction is granted the plaintiff would suffer an irreparable loss.
A single-judge bench of Justice Mukta Gupta held that the present advertisement in the electronic media would be clearly disparaging as on a bare looking at the advertisement a viewer only sees a comparison of one cup of COMPLAN with two cups of HORLICKS with no reference to the serve size.
The HORLICKS LIMITED (Plaintiff) filed a suit against ZYDUS WELLNESS PRODUCTS LIMITED (Defendant) seeking permanent injunction from telecasting or otherwise communicating to the public the advertisement which amounts to intentional and deliberate disparagement of health food drink HORLICK by television commercial (TVC) in respect to COMPLAN which speaks that “ONE CUP COMPLAN CONTAINS PROTEIN = TWO CUP HORLIKS.
The defendant had launched a TV commercial disparaging the plaintiffs‟ product HORLICKS, television commercial is being telecasted in various languages including English, Bengali and Tamil in various television channels. The Plaintiffs claimed that TV viewership is continuous and on daily basis and hence every new person who views the advertisement would be clearly misled.
The defendant (ZYDUS WELLNESS PRODUCTS LIMITED) submitted that an overall impression of the advertisement is required to be seen. The intent and effect of the advertisement being to educate the consumers with respect to the protein content in one cup of COMPLAN as per the recommended serve size of 33 grams being equal to two cups of HORLICKS as per the recommended cup size 27 grams as provided in their respective packages, the advertisement is neither misleading nor disparaging nor defamatory and is factually correct.
Read the Full Order here;
Horliks-order-India Legal Bureau