Munmun Kaur
Published On: December 29, 2021 at 10:18 IST
Recently, the Delhi High Court gave a direction to WhatsApp to take down groups that are unauthorizedly and illegally circulating e-newspaper owned by Dainik Bhaskar Corp Limited.
Justice Sanjeev Narula in the Order said that Plaintiff has made out a prima facie case and the balance of convenience also lies in Plaintiff’s favor. The Order further read that an irreparable loss will be caused if the ex-parte order of injunction refraining the Defendants from illegally circulating Plaintiff’s newspaper, is not granted.
The Dainik Bhaskar Corp. Ltd. is the registered owner of the trademarks “Dainik Bhaskar”, “Divya Bhaskar”, “Divya Marathi”, and “Bhaskar Group”.
The Defendants in the case were WhatsApp LLC being Defendant 1 and Defendant 3-88 being the persons who were members of the WhatsApp group circulating e-newspapers illegally.
Apparently, Plaintiff began circulating its newspaper through its websites “epaper.bhaskar.com” and “epaper.diyyabhaskar.com” on a subscription-based model. The e-newspaper was also accessible on the mobile phone application Dainik Bhaskar. Plaintiff contended that there may be other WhatsApp groups too where the e-newspaper might be circulated illegally and unauthorizedly, although Plaintiff was unaware of it.
The Court directed, “…. till the next date of hearing, Defendant No. 1 is directed to take down/ block the WhatsApp groups identified under paragraph 7 of the present application – which are unauthorisedly and illegally circulating the Plaintiff’s e-newspaper”.
The matter is up for the next hearing on May 02, 2022.