Double whammy on power theft

A weekly selection of key court orders

The Supreme Court has stated that a person who is accused of theft of electricity can be prosecuted both under the Electricity Act upon a complaint by an officer or on a complaint to the police. In this case, Vishal Agrawal vs Chhattisgarh State Electricity Board, the consuming firm was charged with drawing excessive power unauthorisedly. An officer of the board filed a complaint, but the consumer moved the high court arguing that he was not authorised under the rules. It was rejected, and on appeal, the Supreme Court upheld the high court view. It stated that the authorities could proceed under the Electricity Act or under the Criminal Procedure Code.

Trademark restraint on fashion items
The Delhi High Court last week restrained M/s Rasul Exports from using the trademark 'Oliver' on its garments and other fashion products on an injunction petition by S. Oliver Bernd Freir gmbh. The German company is also in the fashion and lifestyle industry. It uses the mark "s.Olive" on its products and domain. The German company complained that the marks are deceptively similar. Accepting the argument, the court directed the Indian company not to use the mark Oliver on its products. According to the judgment, both the firms are in the same field, the German company has presence in many countries as well as in this country and it was the prior user of the trade mark.

Biotech firm loses name battle
The Delhi High Court has rejected the petition of Life Technologies Corporation seeking a permanent injunction restraining Atzlab Soloutions (India) Ltd from using their trade mark and domain names. The dispute was over the names Life Technologies, Gibco, Invitrogen and domain names claimed by the global biotechnology tool company. The opposite parties were former distributors of the products in India. They were also distributors for other parties in the field of discovery biology, immunology, stem cells, embryo transfer, tissue culture and plant biology. The disputes arose after certain mergers and reorganisation within the corporation and cessation of distributorship of the Indian company.