Supreme Court Dismisses Plea Of "PostPe" Against Liberty Given To "PhonePe" To File Fresh Trademark Infringement Suit

The bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Surya Kant while upholding High Court's order in their order said,

"We are not inclined to entertain the Special Leave Petitions under Article 136 of the Constitution of India. The Special Leave Petitions are accordingly dismissed."

The dispute started with PhonePe approaching the court in October last year claiming that Resilient, through its mobile application PostPe, was engaged in an identical field of digital payment services to customers and that amounted to infringement and passing off of PhonePe's trademark.

Case Before Bombay High Court

A single judge refusing interim relief to PhonePe, observed that there was no registration of the word mark 'PE' per se in PhonePe's favour and that it had a label or device mark with the word 'PE' in Devanagri script.

PhonePe, then, sought liberty to withdraw the Suit while Justice Riyaz Chagla was dictating the order, and sought liberty to file a fresh Suit on PhonePe mark as a whole.

Resilient challenged the single judge's order stating that PhonePe could not have been allowed to cure a 'defect of substance' or to overcome the possibility of failure to prove the case pleaded originally.

A division bench of Justices SJ Kathawalla and Milind Jadhav on March 11, 2022 had dismissed as not maintainable Resilient Innovation's appeal which owns the rival brand PostPe. The court had however, refrained from making observations on the merits of the case.

SLP on behalf of PostPe was filed through Salvador Santosh Rebello, AoR, lead by Senior Advocates Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Gaurav Pachnanda and Advocate Ruchira Gupta. Mr. Neeraj Kishan Kaul, Senior Advocate and Mr. K.V. Vishwanathan, Sr. Advocate appeared and argued on behalf of Phonepe Private Limited. Phonepe Private Limited was advised and represented by a legal team of Karanjawala & Co. comprising of Ms. Ruby Singh Ahuja, Ms. Deepti Sarin, Ms. Akanksha Thapa, Mr. Akshay Agrawal and Mr. Vasu Singh.

Case Title: Resilient Innovations Private Limited V Phonepe Private Limited| SLP(Civil) 24136/2021