Delhi High Court cracks down on large-scale fraud through illegal use of Reliance Industries' AJIO trademark

The Delhi High Court recently ordered the Delhi Police to investigate fraudulent and illegal activities through the illegal use of the AJIO trademark, owned by Reliance Industries [Reliance Industries Limited & Anr v. Ajio Online Shopping Pvt Ltd and Ors]..Justice Prathiba M Singh ordered the Cyber Cell of the Delhi Police to investigate the alleged scam on an urgent basis and furnish a report."The advent of digital technology has resulted in creation of various conveniences to customers but has also made it convenient to persons engaged in illegal and nefarious activities. The present case demonstrates how the cloak of digital platforms is being used to dupe innocent customers, by misusing an established brand name," the order stated..The Court passed the order while dealing with a plea filed by Reliance Industries Limited stating that several people were sending various communications under the name and style ‘Ajio Online Shopping Pvt Ltd’ luring consumers into believing that they have won prize money.The perpetrators of this scam were telling people that they have won scratch cards worth up to ₹10 lakh and that they could avail the prize money after depositing ₹5,000. The scammers were using various mobile numbers and bank accounts to receive the deposits, the Bench was told.Reliance sought protection of its trademark and investigation by the police to identify the exact details of the persons involved in the fraud..Justice Singh noted that there is a large-scale operation carried out by unscrupulous individuals with the intention of collecting money under the name of ‘AJIO’ and ‘AJIO Online Shopping Private Limited’.The letters and the scratch cards are so convincing that any customer or recipient would be unable to distinguish between AJIO's communications and those of the alleged scammers, the Court observed.“Owing to the familiarity and reputation of the AJIO name and brand, whenever any customer receives such letters accompanied with scratch cards purportedly issued by the Plaintiffs, it is quite natural for such customer to believe the same to be true. Thus, the request for deposit of some initial fees to be eligible to avail of the scratch card offer is quite a deceptive request, which may be acceded to," the Court noted. It added that several persons seem to be working in close collaboration with each other to illegally make monetary gains in this manner. "Owing to the experience in similar cases, it is also possible that bank accounts have been opened without giving the true name of the persons opening the same.” .The Court, therefore, restrained the defendants from using the mark ‘AJIO’ or sending any communication to any customer for collecting monies into any of the bank accounts.Justice Singh ordered the three banks where defendants had opened their accounts to immediately freeze the bank accounts of the scammers.The banks have been ordered to file a complete bank statement as well as KYC details and other information of these accounts.“The telecom service providers i.e., Defendant Nos. 10 to 12 shall immediately block all the above-mentioned mobile numbers and shall place on record entire documentation available with them in respect of the identity of the individuals who had registered the mobile numbers mentioned in paragraph 29. The DoT [Department of Telecommunications] shall issue blocking orders in respect of all these mobile numbers which shall be made non-operational with immediate effect.”The Court will now hear the matter on September 25..Advocates Sidharth Chopra, Yatinder Garg, Angad Makkar and Raunak Das Sharma appeared for Reliance Industries Limited.Delhi Police was represented through Additional Standing Counsel Hetu Arora Sethi.Central Government Standing Counsel (CGSC) Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar along with Advocates Srish Kumar Mishra, Sagar Mehlawat, Alexander Mathai Paikaday, Krishnan V and M Sriram represented the DoT. .[Read Order]