Delhi court relief for Allahabad Law Agency; restrains Amazon from selling pirated copies of 'Law of Torts'

A Delhi court recently passed an ex-parte ad-interim injunction restraining Amazon Retail India Private Limited and others (defendants) from publishing, selling, soliciting, networking and supplying pirated copies of Allahabad Law Agency's book titled 'Law of Torts' authored by Dr. RK Bangia [Allahabad Law Agency v. Amazon Retail India Pvt. Ltd. & Ors]..District Judge Vineeta Goyal, at Commercial Court, Saket also appointed advocate Amit Kumar Gupta as local commissioner to seize and take charge of the pirated copies and all such other material bearing the trademark of Allahabad Law Agency from the premises of the defendants."Prima facie case is made out under Order XXVI Rule 9 read with Section 151 CPC for appointment of local commissioner with the submissions that nature of case warrants an ex-parte order for appointment of local commissioner for the purpose of prima facie ascertaining the alleged acts of infringement, passing off by the defendant in respect of products of plaintiff," the Court said..The plaintiff Allahabad Law Agency filed the present suit through Advocate Rounak Nayak against defendants seeking permanent injunction, against several book-sellers from infringing copyright in the books of Allahabad Law Agency, primarily 'Law of Torts' by Dr. RK Bangia..It was the case of the plaintiff that it had acquired copyright for publishing and selling the the book 'Law of Torts' from the original owner of copyright (late) Dr. RK Bangia by an agreement/assignment deed executed in August, 1968. Later, after his demise the rights to receive royalty was transferred to the wife of the author and after her death to daughter Sanskriti Jawa.The counsel for plaintiff highlighted that during late 2021, they received several complaints with respect to the quality of the book that was being published under the title of 'Law of Torts'..Most of the complaints received by plaintiff were in respect of the said title purchased by the consumers through the e-commerce website of Amazon. To know the real truth the plaintiff placed orders of infringed title, “Law of Torts' by Dr. R.K. Bangia, 26th Edition” on website of defendant no. 1 and found to their surprise that the defendant(s) no. 2, 3 and 4 were publishing and selling identical and unauthorized copy of the book..Counsel for the plaintiff further argued that the entire contents of the infringing books including inner page, publication credits, preface were verbatim reproduced without the permission from the plaintiff's current as well as preceding publication i.e., the 25th and 26th Edition. "The preface written by Dr. Narender Kumar of the infringing book is a direct copy of the plaintiff's book. The author and publication credits page falsely notes that the infringing book was published by the plaintiff with its contact details, typeset at Neo Software Consultants, Prayagraj and Printed at Compudata Services, New Delhi," it was contended..The Court noted that, a bare glance and perusal of the contents of the plaintiff's product and the defendant's infringing product made it evident that defendant adopted deceptively produced, solicited and sold an unauthorized adaptation of Dr. RK Bangia's works, the exclusive rights of which lie with the plaintiff.It, therefore, proceeded to grant interim relief to the plaintiff.The matter will be next heard on September 5..[Read Order]