Thanks to Devanshu Jain, a practising advocate, we have news of yet another petition before Justice Murlidhar of the Delhi High Court regarding missing files at the Intellectual Property Office of the Government of India.
The petition (W.P. 12505 of 2009), filed by Haldiram Pvt. Ltd., requested the Delhi High Court to issue orders to the Trade Mark Registry to allow for inspection of a particular trademark file which was under litigation. The petitioner was joined by other parties who filed intervention applications seeking similar orders in regards several other trademark files that are supposed to be in the custody of the Trade Mark Registry.
After asking for adjournments for over a year the Trade Mark Registry filed an affidavit before the Delhi High Court, speculating that the files in the Haldiram case may have been misplaced either when the Trade Mark Registry was shifting its office in Mumbai or when the Trade Mark Registry was de-centralizing its work by dispatching its files to the respective branch offices.
Justice Murlidhar was clearly not moved by these explanations when he ordered the Secretary of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotions (DIPP) to personally supervise an investigation into the missing files and file a sworn affidavit before the High Court within three months. The Court has also demanded to know the extent of the ‘missing files’ problem in the Registry.
This is not the first time that the Intellectual Property Office has lost files. A few months ago we had carried a post on another petition before Justice Murlidhar regarding missing files in a pre-grant patent opposition that had been filed before the Patent Office.
In the present case Justice Murlidhar has, interestingly, even issued directions to register FIRs if required, thereby hinting at the possible of criminal action against officials at the Trade Mark Registry. Missing files in a government office is always serious business more so when the files in question are involved in litigation before civil courts as was the case in both the above instances.
As rightly directed by the H’able Judge action needs to be taken for filing of the FIRs. The officials need to be pulled up for the negligence involved.
This points to the fact that the Registry does not have a system in place to identify and track their data.
A sorry state of affairs for a government department that is generating enviable revenue.
Considered to be one of the best systems wonder what the state of affairs will be in other jurisdictions? Any answers?