Supreme Court Weekly Round-Up

Holy book names cannot be claimed as trademarks

Upholding a decision rendered by the Intellectual Property Appellate Board, a Division Bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice RanjanGogoi and Justice R.K. Agrawal recently held that names of holy or religious books cannot be claimed as trademark for goods or services.

Relief for Law minister

Supreme Court of India set aside the judgment of Karnataka High Court which had quashed the orders sanctioning the building construction plans in favour of SadanandaGowda and Jeevaraj by the Bruhat Bangalore MahanagaraPalike (BBMP) and directed the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) to take action against them for violating the conditions in the lease-cum-sale agreement.

CD is also a document

Examining the definition of ‘document’ under Section 3 of the Evidence Act, a Division Bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice Dipak Misra and Justice P.C. Pant has held that a compact disc is also a document.

Other happenings

The Supreme Court on Thursday slammed the Maharashtra government for not complying its October 15 order to lift the ban on dance bars across the state and ordered it to grant licenses to 60 applicants before it within two weeks.

The Apex Court on Thursday agreed to give a hearing and accept detailed statements from several journalists who were asked by their organizations to quit after their names surfaced in “Essar leaks”.

The Supreme Court on Friday ordered former Telecom Minister in the UPA regime DayanidhiMaran to appear before CBI for six days, starting November 30, for questioning in the illegal telephone exchange case.

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a Public Interest Litigation which demanded immediate measures for curbing criminalization of politics and a direction to the authorities including election commission to comply with the law commission and apex court directions in this regard.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said that coordination among countries was the need of the hour at a time when the world the faced unprecedented and the worst ever terror threat. A bench headed by Justice T S Thakur, the Chief Justice designate said this while refusing interim relief to a jailed French woman, facing extradition for her alleged role in the 1991 killing of a Chilean senator.

Observing that  lawyers should not go on strike or give calls to boycott courts, the Supreme Court on Friday  gave a months’ time to various bar bodies including the Bar Council of India to convene a meeting to solve the problem caused by frequent boycotts once and for all.