The main legal point established in the judgment is that the plaintiff's exclusive rights to use the trademarks were upheld, and the defendants' use of 'Baazi' was found to be infringing and passing off.

ORDER

I.A. 8678/2021 (by the plaintiff under Order XXXIX Rules 1 & 2 read with Section 151 CPC seeking ex-parte ad-interim injunction against the defendants)

1. The suit has been filed seeking perpetual and mandatory injunction restraining the defendants from infringement of plaintiffs registered trademarks, passing off, unfair practices, etc., along with costs, damages, delivery up, etc.

2. The plaintiff claims to be a part of the Baazi Group of Companies (for short, "Baazi Group") and claims to be a leading and pioneering name in the Indian gaming industry. It is stated to have been established in the year 2014. Over a period of time the Baazi Group has been offering quality gaming products and experiences to its customers under the branding and registered trademarks inter alia BAAZI, BAAZI GAMES, POKER BAAZI, RUMMYBAAZI, BALLEBAAZI, BAAZI MOBILE GAMING, etc. and it has received customer recognition and approval for these gaming services. It has also attained worldwide popularity and reputation. The plaintiff claims that the plaintiff had honestly and originally adopted "Baazi" as its trademark, registering several variations between 2014 and 2020 which were still valid, which had become the trading identity, corporate name and domain names of the "Baazi Group".

3. The plaintiff has filed registration certificates issued by the Trademarks Registry in respect of the trademarks that have been placed in the documents filed by the plaintiff from pages 6 to 44 of the E-file, and the details thereof have been set out in a tabular form as under: -

4. It is submitted by Mr. Chander M. Lall, learned senior counsel for the plaintiff, that being the registered proprietor of the trademarks-Baazi, Baazi Games, PokerBaazi, RummyBaazi, BalleBaazi, etc., the plaintiff had the exclusive right to use the said trademarks in relation to the goods and services it was providing. The defendant No.1 dishonestly started using "Baazi" in respect of the services that they were providing and thus, passing off their services as those of the plaintiff. Learned senior counsel submitted that the defendant No.2/Paavan Nanda, who is the Director of the defendant No.1, had in fact been the customer of the plaintiff on pokerbaazi.com since 11th July, 2015, and was fully aware of the business reputation of the plaintiff. It is argued, that it was on account of the success of the plaintiffs venture that the defendant No.2 began his own business called "WinZo Games" in India. Thus, the defendant No.1 is a competitor of the plaintiff.

5. However, it began to use the trademark "Baazi" along with "WinZo", branding its services on its website and including its mobile App, as "WinZo Baazi". Learned senior counsel submitted that under Section 29(3) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 (for short, the "T.M. Act"), in view of the identity of the registered trademark of the plaintiff and that copied by the defendants, the court had to presume that confusion would be caused to the public as also within the trade circle. Therefore, the court had to restrain the defendants from using the word "Baazi" in respect of the services they were providing.

6. It was further submitted that in the written statement efforts had been made by the defendants to claim that the word "Baazi" was only used as a descriptive word in "WinZo's Baazi" i.e., a betting game, provided by "WinZo". However, in none of the documents placed on the record either by the plaintiff or by the defendants, being the screenshots and print outs obtained from the defendants' sites, no apostrophe 's' is reflected in "WinZo". Therefore, the claim was incorrect. Moreover, the manner of use was clearly not descriptive. It was pointed out that the font used for "WinZo" and "Baazi" was the same. In other words, "Baazi" was given the same significance as "WinZo", thereby disclosing that "Baazi" was being used as a trademark. By merely claiming that the defendants were only using "Baazi" as a descriptive word for wagering/betting, it can