Delhi High Court rejects plea by Dettol to stay Santoor Hand Wash advertisement

The Delhi High Court Thursday rejected Dettol’s plea to restrain Wipro Enterprises from running an advertisement which allegedly disparaged the former while promoting its own Santoor Hand Wash [Reckitt Benckiser (India) Pvt Limited & Anr v Wipro Enterprises (P) Limited]..Single-judge Justice C Hari Shankar dismissed the interim relief application noting that the Santoor advertisement does not denigrate or disparage Dettol.“It would be reading too much into the impugned advertisement, in my opinion, to extract, from it, anything derogatory or deprecating regarding Dettol… Even if all these features of the advertisement are collectively seen, they do not make out, in any manner of speaking, a message which either denigrates or disparages Dettol,” the Court said.The Court underscored that in the advertisement, there is no direct reference, whatsoever, to any property or characteristic of Dettol and the entire recital is only with respect to Santoor. .The Court passed the order while dealing with a suit filed by Reckitt Benckiser (India) Private Limited, the manufacturer of Dettol.Santoor's advertisement showed a young girl wanting to play with her mother. However, her mother was engaged in gardening making her hands are rough and dirty. She washes her hands with Santoor Hand Wash and goes to play with her daughter. The young girl is amazed at the softness of her mother’s hands and coaxes her into continuing to play with her.A voice over the announces: “haath itne soft ki chhodne ka mann na kare” (the hands are so soft that you do not feel like leaving them).The mother caresses her daughter’s cheeks and afterwards removes from the shelf, a plastic bottle labelled ‘ordinary hand wash’. Dettol alleged that the bottle which is being removed in the ad bears the shape of Dettol Hand Wash..Dettol stated the advertisement assumed more significance in wake of the Covid-19 pandemic because of which people have been washing their hands repeatedly.It was argued that the advertisement effectively rubbishes Dettol as lacking moisturising or hand softening properties indicating that it is inferior to Santoor..Meanwhile, Wipro Enterprises (manufacturer of Santoor) stated that the advertisement does not allude to the properties of Dettol and all that it states is that Santoor contains sandal, which Dettol does not contain and that sandal has skin softening properties.The defendants contended that the Unique Selling Point (USP) of Santoor is that it is made out of natural ingredients, and based on Ayurveda and that advertisement involves an exhortation to a prospective customer to choose the product of Santoor over another.That does not, however, amount to any kind of an indicator that the product of the latter is harmful in any way, it was argued..After considering the arguments, Justice Hari Shankar, noted that no child should be left nameless and, therefore, referred to the child in the advertisement as Priya. The name was followed in the entire judgement running into over 90 pages.On the issues raised in the suit, the Court said comparative advertisement, short of denigration and disparagement, is permitted in law.It said that the primary message that the advertisement seeks to convey is to extol Santoor as superior to other similar products and that it contains sandal, which is known to moisturize the skin.It would be reading too much into the advertisement to extract from it, anything derogatory about Dettol, the Bench underlined.“Priya’s amazement, especially considering that it is the reaction of a little girl, all of around 5 to 6 years of age, cannot be subjected to a searching psychoanalysis. She finds her mother’s hands soft, and is delighted at it. It cannot, thereby, be legitimately held that Priya was, impliedly, conveying a message that, earlier, her mother’s hands had not been soft. At the highest, all that could be said was that, perhaps, her mother’s hands were softer than they used to be. Priya’s reaction is the spontaneous reaction of a child, not the searching response of a critic,” the Court said. .At the most, the message conveyed could be that use of Santoor left Priya’s mother’s hands softer than they were before she started using Santoor and this, at worst, would amount to a representation that Santoor had better moisturizing qualities than Dettol.On the issue of removal of Dettol-like container from the shelf, Justice Hari Shankar found that the entire act takes two seconds and the only message that percolates is that one should prefer Santoor over other hand washes, including Dettol.“No prima facie case is, therefore, made out, to injunct the broadcasting or display of the impugned advertisement,” the Court concluded and dismissed the application..Senior Advocate CM Lall along with advocates Nancy Roy, Aastha Kakkar, Prashant, Nida Khanam and Ananya Chug appeared for Reckitt Benckiser (Dettol).Senior Advocate Akhil Sibal along with advocates Ankur Sangal, Pragya Mishra, Trisha Nag, Sanya Kumar and Asavari Jain appeared for Wipro Enterprises (Santoor). .[Read Order]