Prima Facie Satisfies Test Of Rogue Website: Delhi High Court Grants Relief To Reliance Industries, Directs Suspension Of "JIO Lottery’" Websites
The suit before the Delhi High Court was filed by Reliance Industries, aggrieved by the use of the impugned marks.
Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, Delhi High Court
The Delhi High Court has granted relief to Reliance Industries in a trademark infringement suit by directing the suspension of over 120 Jio Lottery websites/accounts. The High Court held that the objectionable websites and the content in question satisfied the test of a rogue website.
The suit before the High Court was filed by Reliance Industries, aggrieved by the usage of impugned marks.
The Single Bench of Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav held, “The Court has perused the objectionable websites and the content being used on respective websites. The same prima facie seem to satisfy the test of rogue website as laid down by this Court in the case of UTV Software Communication Ltd. and Others vs. 1337X. To and Others.”
Advocate Ankit Sahni represented the Petitioner while Advocate Aditya Gupta represented the Respondent.
Factual Background
The plaintiff claimed to be enjoying exclusive statutory and common law rights over the registered trade mark ‘JIO’. It had come to the knowledge of the plaintiff that through various websites hosted at www. jiolotteryi.com, www.jiolotterylogin.com, www.jiolotterygame.com, www.jiolottery.club and www.jiolottery.store, the defendants were unlawfully incorporating the plaintiff’s registered and well-known trade mark ‘JIO’ in its entirety as its leading, essential and dominant feature.
The plaintiff claimed that the defendants used the impugned marks ‘JIO’/ ‘JIO LOTTERY’ / ‘JIO LOTTERY GAME’ which were identical / near identical deceptively similar to the plaintiff’s well known JIO/ and JIO formative trademarks in relation to lottery, gaming, payment-related and allied services. It contended that till the adjudication of the application, the objectionable website be blocked.
Reasoning
The Bench took note of the fact that the first Defendant was arrayed on the basis of date available in the impugned Domain Names. The other eight Defendants were the Domain Name Registrars engaged in providing domain name registration services in respect of the impugned domain name/ websites. “The said defendants seem to have been impleaded for the purposes of facilitating, preservation and disclosure of complete registrant, account, contact, billing, payment and other identifying particulars and records available with them in relation to the impugned domain names” , it noted.
One of the Defendants was an intermediary, which owned and operated the online publishing platform ‘Blogger’.
Referring to UTV Software Communication (Supra), the Bench held that the objectionable websites satisfied the test of rogue websites.
The Bench thus restrained the first defendant from directly or indirectly registering, operating, controlling, administering, maintaining, promoting, advertising, adopting, or using the impugned marks. “Defendant nos. 2 to 10 are directed to ensure that defendant no.1‟s account/ websites, those enumerated as Annexure-A to the instant order are suspended till further orders to be passed by this Court”, it ordered.
The matter has now been listed on November 30, 2026.
Cause Title: Reliance Industries Limited v. Rahul Meena & Ors. (Case No.: CS(COMM) 1043/2026)
Appearance
Petitioner: Advocates Ankit Sahni, Chirag Ahluwalia, Mohit
Respondent: Advocates Aditya Gupta, Angela Arora, SPC Shivanshu Bhardwajn, GP Manish Rawat