Tata Sons Private Limited Vs John Doe and Ors, CS(COMM) 685/2025:July:10, decided on 10th July 2025 by the High Court of Delhi before Hon’ble Mr. Justice Amit Bansal
The plaintiffs, part of the renowned Tata Group of Companies and proprietors of well-known trademarks including TATA, TATA TEA, TATA COFFEE and others, approached the Delhi High Court seeking urgent interim relief against unknown persons (John Doe defendants) who were fraudulently using the plaintiffs’ marks to impersonate Tata’s representatives and lure the public into fake dealership and distributorship schemes. The plaintiffs narrated that the fraudsters were running multiple deceptive websites containing the TATA mark combined with words like “dealership” and “distributorship”, persuading victims to deposit amounts starting from ₹25,000 under various pretexts such as registration fees and product deposits, ultimately defrauding them of lakhs of rupees. On receipt of several complaints in January 2025, the plaintiffs conducted investigations which revealed a systematic misuse of the TATA brand across multiple domains, email IDs, UPI accounts, and phone numbers, all operated with a similar fraudulent modus operandi.
Faced with continued proliferation of such fraudulent domains and the resultant damage to their goodwill and innocent consumers, the plaintiffs filed the suit along with applications under Order XXXIX Rules 1 & 2 CPC seeking a permanent injunction. Exemption from pre-institution mediation was also sought under Section 12A of the Commercial Courts Act, citing urgency, which the Court granted.
Justice Amit Bansal observed that the plaintiffs had established a prima facie case of trademark infringement and fraud, and that the balance of convenience lay in favour of the plaintiffs. The Court acknowledged the irreparable harm to the plaintiffs’ reputation and the need to protect unsuspecting members of the public from fraud. The order restrained the John Doe defendants from using the plaintiffs’ TATA trademarks or any deceptively similar variants across any medium including domain names, email addresses, social media handles, and bank details. The Court also directed domain registrars to suspend and lock the offending domain names, telecom providers to block related phone numbers, banks and payment platforms to freeze related UPI IDs and bank accounts, and the concerned ministries to issue notifications blocking access to the fraudulent websites and phone numbers. Compliance affidavits and KYC details of the perpetrators were directed to be filed by the respective intermediaries.
