Pakistan's 'Rooh Afza' cannot be sold in India: Delhi HC

New Delhi, Nov 15: The Delhi High Court has passed an order restraining the Amazon India from selling identical product that infringes Hamdard's trademark 'Rooh Afza' including the one manufactured in Pakistan.

The matter had reached the court after Hamdard National Foundation and Hamdard Laboratories India (Hamdard Dawakhana) had filed a suit against Amazon and some sellers for selling the products of its Pakistani counterpart on Amazon website.

"Considering the submissions made and the facts recorded above, the suit shall stand decreed in terms of paragraph 38(a) of the Plaint (an order for permanent injunction restraining) against Defendant No.2 as also the sellers mentioned above," Bar and Bench quoted the Court ordered while passing a permanent injunction in favour of Hamdard National Foundation (India).

It means the products that has similar name or the one manufactured in Pakistan cannot be sold on Amazon in India.

The argument by the petitioner was that the one manufactured in Pakistan does not comply with the legal requirements of the Legal Metrology Act, 2009, the Legal Metrology Commodities) Rules of 2011 and the Food Safety and Standards Act of 2006 which governs such products.

After taking note of the fact that the 'Rooh Afza' product has been in India for over a century, single-bench of Justice Prathiba M Singh on September 5 directed Amazon and other sellers to remove all listings of the product manufactured in Pakistan. Notably, the product was being sold in the e-commerce site without revealing the details of the seller. "Since www.amazon.in claims to be an intermediary it has an obligation to disclose names of sellers, their contact details etc., on the product listings," the HC had said.

'Rooh Afza' and the story of partition of India

Unani practitioner Hakim Hafiz Abdul Majeed is credited for introducing Rooh Afza in India a century ago. However, the product turned out to be a victim of India-Pakistan partition as his elder son stayed in India while his younger son migrated to Pakistan.

They both started their companies in the two countries - Hamdard National Foundation in India and Hamdard Laboratories (Waqf) in Pakistan.