The Delhi High Court has recently temporarily constrained a few unknown entities from holding themselves to be franchisees of Starbucks without any authorization.
Justice C Hari Shankar noticed that the Court was bound to interfere in the case where one of the imposters hold themselves out, without any authorization, to be a franchisee of Starbucks.
Hence, the Court registered the plaint as a suit.
The order stated, “The case being one of unauthorized imposters holding themselves out, without authorization, to be franchisees of the plaintiffs, the Court is bound to interfere. In the circumstances, let the plaint be registered as a suit.”
Therefore, Starbucks approached the Court alleging that several unknown entities were incorrectly claiming to be its authorized franchisees, and public misleads.
It brought to the Court’s notice that a few such domain names like starbucks-franchise.com, www.starbucksfranchise.in and starbucksfranchise.co.in.
Further, the plaint stated that the money earned by the unauthorised representatives was being deposited in a bank in Mumbai’s Lower Parel.
Hence, plaintiffs prayed that the Court restrain these entities from defrauding the public, and collecting money misappropriating.
After registering the plaint as a suit, the Court issued summons to the defendants and sought written statements within 30 days. In the application seeking interim injunctive relief, the Court issued the notice returnable on July 24, 2023.
However, it directed Google to disable an unauthorized email ID, starbucksdealership@gmail.com, and provide plaintiff’s details of the holder of the email ID.
Also, the Court directed the blocking of access to the domain names mentioned in the plaint.
Further, it conducted freezing of the bank account number mentioned in the plaint and directed the bank to disclose the identity of the holder to the Court. The Court ordered the blocking of a phone number mentioned by the plaintiffs and directed that the identity of the holder of the number be disclosed as well.
The blockings are to continue till the next date of the hearing.
