Ogle the Web

Who doesn't enjoy some humour from the bench? The Dormant Lawyer especially thrives on such instances, that make the task of poring over lengthy and knotty judgments seem a blissful interlude, and not seem a task at all.

The present instance is in a rather short and precise Notice of Motion (3rd Oct 2016) written by Gautam Patel, J, of the Bombay High Court in the matter of Go Holdings Pvt Ltd & 2 Others v. Interglobe Aviation Ltd (IndiGo) & Anr.

Go Holdings own and operate the GoAir airline and are suing Interglobe, who own and operate IndiGo Airlines, to prevent them from using the domain "GoIndigo.in", citing trademark violation (I guess). Now, to be frank, this case has revealed to me exactly how dormant I have been - before hearing of this, if you would have asked me if GoAir and IndiGo are the same airline I would probably have answered in the affirmative. Which kind of tells me that the plaintiff has a thing or two going for them. Justice Patel, it would seem, disagrees. He has obviously not come out at this early stage to say so, but he certainly has found the whole matter quite amusing, as is revealed in the very first paragraph of the notice...

GoAir believes that Indigo should not use the domain name GoIndigo.in; it has intellectual property issues with Indigo's chosen prefix Go in its domain name (though apparently not with the trailing go; a small mercy as it happens, for that might be a demand that Indigo should be rechristened Indi.)

Right off the bat, there is plenty of humour in this first paragraph (and all italics are in the original!) but it also might indicate in which direction Justice Patel is leaning. I daresay the order must have unnerved the plaintiff's counsel a touch...

Paragraph 2 continues in the same vein, and raises the humour a notch:

For reasons that are presently unclear so far, Google India Limited, the 2nd defendant, is also said to be liable. Mr. Jamsandekar for the plaintiff grants that this is not because the word Go is also part of Google's corporate domain name (and much else besides). That is all to the good, for the alternative is unthinkable – we might otherwise be forced to ogle the Web.

In one fell swoop, Justice Patel has ribbed Adv. Jamsandekar for bringing this suit before him, a suit that it seems His Lordship finds frivolous, and for including Google as a defendant, without forgetting to taunt all those who utilize the 2nd defendant's search engine in their voyeuristic pursuits. We salute you Justice Patel! 

(Note: TDL believes Google has been joined as a party because they might have something to do with granting said domain name to Indigo, and will have an action item if GoAir succeeds, but this is just conjecture really)

The good-natured mocking of plaintiff's counsel (and the italicisation) continues in Paragraph 3, and the ever-inclusive Justice Patel doesn't want defence counsel to feel left out:

Mr. Jamsandekar insists that there are important legal issues, and this is why, according to him, the filings in the Notice of Motion have reached the stage of a sur-rejoinder ending at page 441. Mr. Jamsandekar's immediate goal is to file a sur-sur-rejoinder. He says that there is new material introduced by Indigo in sur-rejoinder and he is going to show actual confusion. Given the highly eccentric paging of this record, some confusion already exists, albeit not of the kind Mr. Jamsandekar has in mind. Goaded by this, Mr. Kirpekar for Indigo says he will then need to respond, adding even more heft to this already portentous litigation, by filing a sur-sur-sur-rejoinder – although he has, for reasons that are again not immediately apparent, gone ahead and filed a Written Statement even without waiting for directions from the Court.

Justice Patel is clearly bemused by the almost moot-Courtish enthusiasm shown by the learned opposing counsel. Dormant as well as active and exploding lawyers will be looking forward to 19th October, when he takes up the suit for framing issues.

(Many thanks to LiveLaw.in for publishing the original story)