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Synopsis

A Single Judge Bench of the Bombay High Court comprising Justice Manish Pitale has asked GoDaddy to inform Swiggy every time the domain 'Swiggy' is registered with GoDaddy. The bench has however refused to pass an omnibus order in favour of Swiggy.

The court had earlier passed orders directing GoDaddy to not register the domain name ‘Swiggy’ after Swiggy had approached the court alleging that the public at large suffered due to the nefarious activities of persons using the domain name of Swiggy. Swiggy was informed by one of the people that he and other innocent persons were duped by an entity that was using the domain name of Swiggy.

The present plea was filed by GoDaddy seeking modification of its earlier order passed in November 2022 wherein it had directed GoDaddy to not register any present or future registration with the name Swiggy.

The counsel for GoDaddy argued that it did not have any control over future registrations since it is a process without human intervention. However, it had complied with removing all the registered domains. He said that if such an order was not modified then Godaddy would be vulnerable to contempt.

The counsel for Swiggy submitted that GoDaddy’s stand before Delhi High Court was different and that the Delhi High Court had directed GoDaddy to prevent future registrations.

The court said, “The Defendant Nos. 15 and 16, by way of an ad-interim direction, shall inform the Plaintiff on each occasion that registration of a domain name is granted, which contains the registered trademark of the Plaintiff “Swiggy”, through the automated process of registration of the said Domain Name Registrar. Upon such information being provided to Plaintiff, it would be at liberty to take appropriate action in the matter.”

However, the high court said that it would not be appropriate to continue the ad-interim order as it would amount to granting an omnibus and global temporary injunction, operating in future.

Nonetheless, the court took into consideration the interest of the plaintiff and said that GoDaddy should inform Swiggy every time a domain was registered in its name and Swiggy could take appropriate action against them

“An appropriate direction can be given to the Defendant Nos. 15 and 16, so as to facilitate the Plaintiff in seeking appropriate relief from this Court, if the occasion arises,” court ordered.

Case Title: Bundl Technologies Private Limited vs Aanit Awattam alias Aanit Gupta & Ors.