RAM MURTI Vs. ANIL SASHI GORE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition under Article 227 of the Constitution and Sections 397, 401 and 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to quash the order 30-5-1977 passed by the learned Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Delhi (Shri Mohd. Shamim) allowing the application by Durga Dutt Vasudeva as a power of attorney agent of a private limited company, Pressure Cookers and Appliances Private Limited, to continue the complaint already instituted on behalf of the said company, filed by its power of attorney agent, Anil Sashi Gore, who has since resigned from the company and joined yet another company. The prosecution was for offences said to have been committed under Sections 78 and 79 of the Trade and Merchandise Marks Act read with section 120 1. .P. C.

(2.) It is needless to be detained with substantial averments concerning the commission of the said offences which are matters for the trying Magistrate to decide upon. It is sufficient for the purpose of this petition to merely note that Anil Sashi Gore had described not the said company as the co-nominee complainant, but the complainant had been described as Anil Sashi Gore, giving his address. Nonetheless, the complaint, a copy of which is Annexure A to the petition, had specifically and repeatedly averred that he was the Marketing Director of the Pressure Cookers and Appliances Pvt. Ltd. ; the complaint was made " concerning piracy in trade said to have been committed by the accused on the trade of the said company in relation to the pressure cookers and pressure cookers parts under the registered trade mark "Hawkins Universal" or "Hawkins"; the said company has its registered office at Bombay. It is needless to refer to the various averments in the complaint in this behalf; it is sufficient to record that this idea of the complaint having been given on behalf of the said company and by himself as duly constituted power of attorney has been very prominently, categorically and unequivocally expressed in the complaint. It may also be necessary to record that the right which has been put forward by Anil Sashi Gore in the complaint is the right of the company to the trade mark in question; it was not a personal trade mark issued to Anil Sashi Gore. The complaint being so clear it seems that it is not possible to dispute, as the petitioner and before the learned Magistrate and also before' me, 'that the real complainant, on whose behalf the complaint had been filed in this case, was only the said company.

(3.) The meaning of the complaint having been understood in the above manner the next question for consideration is whether after the power of attorney agent Anil Sashi Gore had ceased to be an employee of the company and had also joined yet another company, there is any impediment in the matter of yet another duly registered power of attorney agent of the company continuing the said complaint so as to be regarded as the complainant within the meaning of Section 256 Cr. P.O.; 1974 which reads as follows :