HC directs MoC to trace 44,000 missing trademark files

NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court has directed the ministry of commerce and industry to trace 44,000 missing files relating to registration of trademark and fix responsibility of the officials concerned.

Describing the missing of files as "alarming", Justice S Muralidhar directed the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, to search for these files which had gone missing while moving them from Mumbai to another centre of Trade Mark Registry ( TMR).

"This court directs that the said measures should be strictly implemented. In particular where a file is not traceable and/or possibly misplaced, departmental action should be taken to fix the responsibility for negligence, and where malafide is prima facie established, an FIR should also be lodged," the court said.

"It is alarming that as many as 44,404 files of trade mark registrations (not accounting for opposition files) have gone missing since 2006 and this fact remained unknown to the TMR and the DIPP till an enquiry was ordered by this court," it said.

The direction of the court came on a petition of Haldiram India Pvt Ltd seeking direction to TMR to allow inspection of the file relating to registration of trademark 'Haldiram Bhujiawala' for sweets and namkeens and its opposition by a firm M/s Haldiram Madanlal.

The court, however, declined to fix the modalities for reconstruction of the Haldiram case files and said, "How in each of the cases concerning ... and in the other connected cases, the original trade mark registration and opposition/ rectification files should be reconstructed, is not for this court to decide. That will have to be decided by the courts and other fora where the cases are pending."

The TMR had failed to provide the details of the trademark and its opposition, on an application of Haldiram India Pvt Ltd, saying that the file relating to it was not available to the department.

Aggrieved by the order of the TMR, the petitioner moved the high court seeking direction to the department for providing details of registration of the trademark Haldiram Bhujiawala.

The office of the TMR was shifted to a new building at Mumbai in 2006. The department said that "it may be possible that in transportation of the record, the aforesaid registered file must have been misplaced."

The court also expressed its concern over the functioning of the department, saying the main reason for a large number of missing files was the lack of scientific record-keeping as well as lack of due diligence by the TMR staff.