High Court Quashes Pune Police FIR Against Newslaundry Journalist For Using Logo Of Sakal Media Group In News Reports

Mubarak Ansari

Pune, 21 April 2021: The Bombay High Court has quashed an FIR registered by Pune city police against Prateek Chandragupt Goyal (38), a journalist with online news portal ‘Newslaundry’, for using logo of ‘Sakal Media Group’ in two articles.

The case was registered at Vishrambaug police station on 16th September 2020 for an offence under section 103 of the Trademark Act.

A bench of Justice SS Shinde and Justice Manish Pitale in their judgement dated April 20, 2021, stated, “It becomes clear that in the facts and circumstances of the present case, mere use of the registered trademark of the Sakal Media Group in articles authored by the petitioner and published by the news portal ‘Newslaundry’, do not fit into the definition of the false application of the trademark in relation to goods or services. Therefore, in the absence of ingredients of the offence being made out, even on admitted facts, the First Information Report could not have been registered.”

What is the case?

As per the FIR, Goyal committed an offence by falsely applying trademark of Sakal Group in two articles authored by him and published in the news portal ‘Newslaundry’. The two articles were published on 27/03/2020 and 11/06/2020. In the said articles the registered trademark of the Sakal Media Group and Sakal Times was shown with a prominence at the top. In the article published on 27/03/2020, the heading was ‘The future is bleak: Sakal Times staffers say they have been sacked in violation of Maharashtra order’. In the article published on 11/06/2020, the heading was ‘They wanted to get rid of us: over 50 people laid off as Sakal Times closes down’. 

According to complainant Mahendra Pisal (54), Chief Administrative Officer of Sakal Media Group, these were highly defamatory articles against the Sakal Media Group and that use of the official logos/trademark of the Sakal Media Group and Sakal Times on these articles clearly amounted to falsely applying for the said trademark, thereby resulting in an offence under Section 103 of the aforesaid Act. Also, when the word ‘Sakal’ was clicked on online search, it led to the said articles authored by the petitioner (Goyal) and published on the news portal ‘Newslaundry’, thereby demonstrating that the offence under Section 103 of the said Act was indeed committed in the present case.

In the FIR, it was stated that the offence was committed from 27/03/2020 to 11/06/2020 and, the case was registered after three months on 16/09/2020.

What defence lawyer said?

Senior lawyer Nikhil Sakhardande and adv Nipun Katyal submitted that the trademark of Sakal Media Group was shown in the articles only to indicate that those specific articles pertained to the Sakal Media Group. The action of the journalist was protected as a nominative fair use of the trademark of Sakal Media Group.

Observation by the judges

“It is an admitted position that the articles were published in the online news portal ‘Newslaundry’ and there was no suggestion that the said news portal itself was that of ‘Sakal’. Merely because an online search for the word ‘Sakal’ led to the aforesaid articles of the petitioner published in the news portal ‘Newslaundry’, does not mean that the registered trademark of Sakal Media Group was falsely applied to goods or services by the petitioner.

At worst, it could be said that such an online search leading to the aforesaid articles might be the subject matter of an injunction suit at the behest of Sakal Media Group due to the contents of the said articles, but, that falls within the realm of a civil dispute that could be raised by Pisal. In fact, Pisal did issue a Notice on behalf of the Sakal Media Group (claiming Rs 65 lakh for defamation) and chose to file a suit for injunction before the competent Civil Court, which is pending.”

Therefore, the FIR deserves to be quashed, the judges held.