'Nation Wants To Know': Delhi High Court closes Times Group's contempt of court plea against Republic TV, Arnab Goswami

The Delhi High Court Wednesday closed a contempt of court case filed by Bennett Coleman & Co (Times Group) against Republic TV and its Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami (defendants) alleging violation of the Court's earlier direction regarding use of the tagline ‘Nation Wants To Know' by Republic TV [Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd v. ARG Outlier Media Pvt Ltd]..Times Group today withdrew the plea after Justice C Hari Shankar observed that the use of the tagline by Republic TV seemed to have been done within the limits of prescribed by the Court's October 2020 order.The single-judge then proceeded to close the contempt of court case.The High Court had, on October 23, 2020, passed an interim injunction, restraining the ARG Outlier Media - the company that owns the Republic TV - from using the trademark ‘News Hour’.However, the Court had refused to pass an interim order in respect of the tagline ‘Nation Wants To Know, while recording Times Group’s statement that Goswami “is free to use the same as part of his speech/presentation of any news channel, etc.” The Court had further said if Republic TV chooses to use the tagline as a trademark “with respect to any of their goods/services”, it will maintain accounts for such usage and file them regularly on affidavit.Subsequently, Times Group filed a contempt of court application under Order XXXIX Rule 2A of the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC) alleging violation of the order dated October 2020 by ARG by while using the tagline ‘Nation Wants To Know' as a trademark, and not maintaining and filing the accounts of such usage as directed by the Court.It was argued on behalf of Times Group that the defendants were using the tagline ‘Nation Wants To Know' to associate it with Arnab Goswami.Senior Advocate Malvika Trivedi, representing the defendants, rebutted the same and submitted that the 2020 order recorded that they were permitted to use the tagline as part of speech/presentation of news. It was also submitted that similar screenshots as relied upon by the Times Group in their contempt application were placed before the court earlier at the time of hearing the injunction application also..The Court today noted that its October 2020 order had allowed Republic TV to “use the tagline for speech or presentation of an news, etc”The judge further observed that while hearing an application under Order XXXIX Rule 2A, it cannot determine whether usage of the tagline is a trademark infringement or not and only has to examine whether there has been any violation of the order. Hence, the Court observed that there was no case of contempt as the defendants had prima facie used the tagline “in possible limits” as mentioned in the order dated October 23, 2020.Times Group then withdrew the contempt of court plea..The Times Group was represented by advocates Manish Kumar Mishra, Hemant Singh, Mamta Rani Jha, Pragya Jain and Saumya Khandelwal Advocates. Republic TV was represented by Senior Advocate Malvika Trivedi, and advocates Rahul Tyagi and Diya Dutta..[Read Order]