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The Single Bench of Justice Jayant Nath of Delhi High Court has directed Google India for suspension of advertising accounts of  Happy Easy Go India Private Limited on Google Ads Programme for not adhering to the interim order dated 30.05.2018. 

“Consequently, till further orders, the defendant no. 1, its partner, directors, shareholders, assigns in business, affiliates, subsidiaries, agents, broadcasters, representatives, advertisers, franchisees, licensees and/or all other persons acting on its behalf are restrained from bidding for, adopting and using Plaintiff's MakeMyTrip word mark or any deceptive variant thereof, whether with the inclusion of spaces or other special characters in the trade mark MakeMyTrip, as an Ad Word through the Ad Word Program of Google or any other ad word/keyword program in any manner whatsoever”, the order dated 30.05.2018 passed by Single Bench of Justice Manmohan stated. 

In the present matter the plaintiff (MakeMyTrip) a company started its business with airline booking and has further expanded into a range of products and services beyond online and travel booking. In December 2017 the plaintiff came to know that Defendant No 1’s website was appearing in the sponsored links section of the search engine, when search was conducted for the mark “makemytrip”. Through its Counsel, the plaintiff issued a cease & desist notice dated January 4,2018 asking Defendant No 1 to cease the bidding of the plaintiff’s MakeMyTrip Marks as ad-words for all its business activities. Since the defendant No 1 did not reply to the same & continued to illegally bid for the plaintiff’s mark, the plaintiff filed a suit for permanent injunction restraining infringement of trademark, passing off, dilution of goodwill, unfair competition, delivery up, rendition of profits/ damages, delivery up etc. 

The Counsel for the plaintiff submitted that defendant No 1 did not bid for the word like “trip”, “make trip”, “make your trip” and/or “mytrip” as search conducted using these words did not show the website of the defendant in the sponsored link. The Plaintiff’s Counsel further contended that the defendant No 1 engaged in illegal activities with mala fide intent of diverting business from the plaintiff’s website to its own website by riding on the reputation & goodwill associated with the plaintiff’s MakeMyTrip marks. 

Thereafter, the Bench while relying on the order dated April 3,2013 passed by the Coordinate Bench in HSIL Limited v. Omkara Infoweb Pvt Ltd & Ors CS(OS) 594/2013, opined that the case of infringement and passing off was made out in favour of the plaintiff & balance of convenience was also in its favour. Further, the Bench also observed that if an interim injunction order was not passes, irreparable harm or injury would be caused to the Plaintiff.

On July 5, 2018 the Plaintiff’s Counsel brought to the Court’s notice that the defendant No 1 was continuing its illegal & unlawful bidding for the plaintiff’s MMT mark as its Ad Word for promoting its business despite the ex parte injunction order. 

Thus, to ensure presence of the contemnors Rajesh Kumar Dathik and Neelam Rani, the Bench issued bailable warrants against them on a surety of Rs 50,000/- each and further directed the concerned police station to ensure service of the warrants. 

The matter is now listed for April 7,2021. 

Case Title: Make My Trip (India) Private Limited V. Happy Easy Go India Private Limited | CS(COMM) 916 of 2018