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Delhi HC to OLX and Quickr: Stop posting fake reliance jobs ads on web portals
The Delhi High Court reprimanded OLX India and Quikr India from posting "fake and fraudulent" recruitment advertisements on their web portals by mentioning phrases 'JIO Jobs' and 'Reliance Trends Jobs' allegedly causing harm to the goodwill of Reliance Industries Ltd.
Justice Mukta Gupta, in two separate orders, held the case to be in favor of RIL and held that if no interim injunction is granted then they would suffer an irreparable loss. The High Court passed the orders on two different suits by RIL claiming themselves to be the owners of trademarks and trade names JIO and RELIANCE, with its variations in the number of classes and defendants OLX India BV and OLX India Pvt. Ltd. and Quikr India Pvt. Ltd. are causing immense harm to their goodwill.
The web portals published classified advertisements and enabled consumers to publish advertisements for selling and offering goods and services. The suits asserted fake and fraudulent recruitment advertisements were being published on their web portals which were accessible under the plaintiff’s name and hence, the same violates their trademark and tradename. It was reiterated that their trademark was being misused and a number of innocent job seekers were deceived and extorted money from them.
OLX India submitted that they have removed URLs and one URL could not be removed due to technical reasons and hence, they are in the process of doing the same. He claimed that filters of their names were added so that nobody misuses them in the future with fake advertisements.
Quikr India held that the listings on its portal are automatic and due to a large number of people listing their advertisements and the system being auto-generated, the portal has no mechanism to determine the authenticity of the third parties.
"Consequently, till the next date of hearing, defendant, its agents, servants, affiliates are also restrained from putting on their portal any advertisement containing the name/mark JIO and RELIANCE with its variations and/or any other mark, logo which is deceptively/confusingly similar to the plaintiffs' registered trademarks JIO and RELIANCE in terms of prayer."
The High Court asked the OLX India and Quikr India to file their written statement and add the affidavit would indicate the "process implemented by them as also the due diligence carried out and precautions are taken so that the platform of the defendants is not misused and illegal advertisements posted thereon".
