Skip to main content

Advertisement Is Facet Of Commercial Speech Protected By Article 19(1) (A) Of Constitution

In HORLICKS LTD. vs HEINZ INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED, a suit filed by Horlicks Ltd for damages and permanent injunction restraining infringement, disparagement and unfair trade practices against HEINZ India Private Limited (Complan) as the advertisement by Complan had compared one cup of COMPLAN with two cups of HORLICKS and claimed that one cup of COMPLAN has the same amount of protein as two cups of HORLICKS.

The court held that the COMPLAN advertisement is not misleading and there is no denigration or disparagement of Horlicks. The court also held that the primary objective of Sections 29(8) and 30(1) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999, is to allow comparative advertising as long as the use of a competitor’s mark is honest and that the failure to point out a competitor’s advantages is not necessarily dishonest.

The court also opined that advertisement is a facet of commercial speech which is protected by Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. The same can be restricted only in accordance with law enacted under Article 19(2) of the Constitution. In a democratic country, free flow of commercial information is indispensable and the public has a right to receive the commercial speech. In fact, the protection given to an advertisement under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution is a necessary concomitant of the right of the public to receive the information in the advertisement.


Comments

Post a Comment

Most viewed this month

Appellate authorities under Special Statutes cannot be asked to condone delay

Madras High Court in R.Gowrishankar vs. The Commissioner of Service Tax has held that Appellate authorities cannot be asked to condone the delay, beyond the extended period of limitation A Division Bench comprising of Justices S. Manikumar and D. Krishnakumar, made this observation while considering an appeal filed against Single Bench order declining to set aside the order made in the condone delay petition filed by the petitioner to condone 223 days in filing the appeal before the Commissioner of Service Tax (Appeals). Article referred: http://www.livelaw.in/appellate-authorities-special-statutes-cannot-asked-condone-delay-beyond-extended-period-limitation-madras-hc/
Post a Comment
Read more

'Seize assets to pay damages to accident victim'

Her story might be an inspiration for the physically challenged but justice has remained elusive for her. In 2008, a bus accident left research engineer S Thenmozhi, 30, paraplegic. In April 2013, the motor accident claims tribunal directed the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) to provide her a compensation of 57.9 lakh. However, TNSTC refused to budge and on Tuesday a city court ordered attaching of movable assets of the transport corporation. Thenmozhi was employed in C-DOT, a telecom technology development centre in Bangalore. On July 21, 2008, she was coming to Chennai in a private bus. Around 2am, the bus had a flat tyre and the driver parked it on the left side of the road near Pallikonda in Vellore district on the Bangalore-Chennai highway. While the tyre was being changed, a TNSTC bus of Dharmapuri division hit the stationary bus. The rear part of the bus was smashed and passengers were injured. Thenmozhi who had a seat at the back of the bus suffered...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mumbai ITAT rules income of offshore discretionary trust is subject to tax in India

The Mumbai Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) has recently determined the following issue in the affirmative in the case of Manoj Dhupelia: Should the income of an offshore discretionary trust be subject to tax in India, if no distributions have been made to beneficiaries in India? The question arose from appeals filed by individual beneficiaries in relation to a Lichtenstein-based trust, the Ambrunova Trust and Merlyn Management SA (the Trust) with the ITAT. It is important to note that the individuals in this case were amongst those first identified by the Government of India (GOI) as holding undeclared bank accounts in Lichtenstein. The ITAT ruling raises the following issues: Taxation of Trust Corpus: ITAT classified the corpus of the trust as "undisclosed income" and declared it taxable in the hands of the beneficiaries. Taxation of Undistributed Income: ITAT refused to draw a distinction between the corpus and undistributed income from the trust and declared i...
Post a Comment
Read more