Sri Krishna Sweets trademark dispute: Madras High Court refuses to summon Deputy Registrar

Madras High Court denies request to summon Deputy Registrar in Sri Krishna Sweets trademark dispute, citing no useful purpose.

The Madras High Court has rejected a plea by Coimbatore-based Sri Krishna Sweets Private Limited, represented by its managing director M. Krishnan, to summon the Deputy Registrar of Trade Marks in Chennai to tender evidence in a trademark dispute between him and his brother M. Murali.

Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy said, no useful purpose would be served in summoning the Deputy Registrar to tender evidence with respect to the nature of the trademark registered in 1988. He, however, said the parties could raise their contentions on the disputed issue during the course of the final arguments.

In his application for summoning the Deputy Registrar for examination as a witness, Mr. Krishnan, 72, said that the trademark KRISHNA, in capital letters, was registered back in 1988, after about eight years since the commencement of sweets and savouries business in such name in 1979.

He said that the Trademark Registry had issued two certificates regarding the registration and there were discrepancies between them. While the manually issued certificate described the nature of the trademark to be ‘Letters,’ another electronically issued certificate described the nature of the mark as ‘Device.’

Claiming that KRISHNA was registered only as a word mark and not a device mark, Mr. Krishnan said that it was therefore, essential to summon the Deputy Registrar of Trademarks to tender evidence and explain as to how two conflicting certificates had been issued for the same mark.

On the other hand, in a counter affidavit filed through his counsel on record Rahul Balaji, Mr. Murali, 64, said that the plea to summon the Deputy Registrar, when the proceedings had reached the stage of the final arguments, was wholly misconceived, belated, and an abuse of the process of law.