The central legal point established in the judgment is the requirement for errors to be apparent on the face of the record or for any other sufficient reason to justify review jurisdiction.

JUDGMENT

(Prayer: Transfer Civil Miscellaneous Appeal (Trademark) filed under Section 91 of the Trade Marks Act 1999 praying to (a) set aside/quash the order dated 27th January 2011 of the 2nd respondent, restore order dated 3rd February 2010 allowing appellant''s opposition MAS -58565 and dismissing 1st respondent application No. 699376 in class 5; (b) allow appellant''s opposition MAS-58565 and disallow 1st respondent''s application no.699376 in class 5 to proceed for registration.)

1. An order dated 27.01.2011 allowing a review application is impugned in this appeal. The first respondent herein had applied for registration of the mark ''ZINCODERM''. The appellant filed notice of opposition on 08.03.2001. After considering the pleadings and the evidence placed on record by the parties, by order dated 03.02.2010, the opposition was accepted and the Trademarks Registry refused to register the first respondent''s mark ''ZINCODERM''. Upon a review application being filed, the order dated 27.01.2011 was issued allowing such review.

2. Oral arguments on behalf of the appellant were advanced by Mr.Arun C. Mohan, learned counsel; and on behalf of the first respondent by Mr.R. Sathish Kumar, learned counsel. Mr. C.Samivel, learned Senior Panel Counsel, appears for the second respondent.

3. Mr.Arun C. Mohan assailed the impugned order on the ground that the scope of review jurisdiction is narrow and that appellate jurisdiction was erroneously exercised while issuing the impugned order. He invited my attention to the judgment of the Hon''ble Supreme Court in Meera Bhanja v. Nirmala Kumari Choudhury (Meera Bhanja), (1995) 1 SCC 170, particularly paragraph 8 thereof, to contend that the scope of review is confined to the ambit of Order 47 Rule 1 Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (the CPC). He also pointed out the conclusion of the Hon''ble Supreme Court in the above judgment that the exercise of review jurisdiction should be confined to cases where the error is apparent on the face of the record without resorting to a long-drawn process of reasoning, especially on issues on which there could conceivably be more than one opinion.

4. He next invited my attention to the original order dated 03.02.2010. By referring to the operative portion of the said order, he pointed out that the Deputy Registrar of Trademarks concluded that the appellant''s mark ''ZINDERM'' and the first respondent''s mark ''ZINCODERM'' are nearly identical, except for the inclusion of the letters ''C'' and ''O''. Mr.Arun C.Mohan submitted that this conclusion was drawn after taking note of the pleadings and evidence on record. He next referred to the order passed in the review application. He pointed out that the grounds for review under Order 47 Rule 1 CPC were noticed in the impugned order while recording that the grounds of discovery of new and important matter or evidence and error apparent on the face of the record are inapplicable. After recording such finding, Mr.Arun C.Mohan contended that there is no explanation in the impugned order as to why there is sufficient reason to review the original order. Indeed, he contended that the review order does not contain a finding that the original order contained an error apparent or anything analogous thereto. In effect, his submission was that appellate jurisdiction and not review jurisdiction was exercised while passing the impugned order.

5. In response, Mr.R.Sathish Kumar provided an overview of the fact situation. He submitted that the trademark application was filed in the year 1996, the original order was passed in the year 2010 and the review order shortly thereafter in January 2011. Pursuant to the impugned order, he submitted that the first respondent''s trademark was registered with effect from the date of application and has remained on the register for about 12 years. He also pointed out that the first respondent commenced use of the trademark shortly after filing the application for registration in the year 1996 and h