In one of its first orders referring to the new criminal law that came into effect on July 1, the Delhi High Court this week referred to the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023, in a trademark infringement case which also involved issues of forgery and fabrication of documents. KG Marketing India, a manufacturer of electrical appliances, filed a trademark infringement suit against two individuals seeking an injunction against the use of the mark ‘SURYA’. An interim order was passed in its favour in January last year. Later, the defendants claimed they are copyright owners of various labels under ‘SURYA GOLD’ mark and alleged the documents filed by KG Marketing were “fabricated”. While considering whether the alleged fabrication called for action under Section 340 of CrPC, a single-judge bench of Justice Prathiba Singh, in its July 2 order, said, “Since the application was pending when the new statutes Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS) and BNSS were enacted, the matter would continue under the erstwhile code itself.” Noting that there was forgery and fabrication in the matter, the high court also said that until the defendants pointed out the original newspaper, KG Marketing did not admit to forgery or fabrication of the newspapers; it had, in fact, relied and filed the newspapers in its lawsuit as if they were “authentic newspapers”.
