Macrotech Developers, formerly known as Lodha Group, of Abhishek Lodha, has approached the Bombay High Court with a trademark infringement suit to restrain House of Abhinandan Lodha Estate Holdings Private Limited (HoABL), a firm owned by his younger brother, from using the brand name ‘Lodha’ in any form.
On Tuesday, the matter was initially listed before a single-judge bench of Justice Manish M Pitale. When it came up for hearing, Senior Advocate Darius Khambata for Macrotech told Justice Pitale that the suit has sought over Rs. 5000 crore damages in the alternative from the defendants and there was an ‘ex-facie urgency’ in the matter.
While Justice Pitale observed Khambata’s argument about the damages, he said the same would pertain to an assignment of another bench of the High Court as he had an assignment of hearing suits claiming damages up to Rs. 100 crore. The judge granted liberty to the parties to mention the matter before an appropriate bench. The Macrotect lawyers are likely to mention the plea before Justice Arif S Doctor after 2.30 pm.
In the post-lunch session, Advocate Hiren Kamod representing Macrotech mentioned the matter before Justice Doctor. “It is more like a family feud now. The fight is over the Lodha trademark,” Kamod said.
Justice Doctor said he will hear the matter on Monday, January 27, on whether interim relief can be granted to his client.
Why did Lodha brothers move Bombay HC?
In 2015, Abhinandan parted ways from Lodha Group and started HoABL, the separation was formalised based on a family settlement agreement in 2017. Abhishek and Abhinandan are sons of senior Maharashtra minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha.
The plea by Macrotech claimed that due to non-compliance with the 2017 agreement, the new agreement was signed between the two parties in December 2023, which expressly prohibited Abhinandan from using a name similar to ‘Lodha’. Macrotech filed an interim application seeking urgent direction to a firm owned by Abhinandan to stop using the brand name pending hearing of the suit.
What are the relief sought and claims made?
In their suit, Macrotech and Digirealty Technologies Pvt Ltd have sought perpetual injunction on infringing on their registered trademarks and from offering, selling, advertising, distributing, marketing, exhibiting for sale or otherwise dealing with impugned services or any goods same or similar to plaintiffs’ goods and service that contain the mark ‘LODHA.’
In its interim application seeking urgent relief, Macrotech claimed that due to the infringement and passing off of its well-known trademarks, defendants have caused loss or damages provisionally estimated to be more than Rs. 5,000 crore, and that the loss would rise if the defendants are allowed to continue with their actions.
The plea added that Macrotech has spent time, effort and money to build its brand through advertisements and endorsements and is known across the country and abroad for its quality and scale of real estate development projects. It said Lodha Group is currently developing over 40 real estate projects across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Pune, and Bengaluru and is likely to expand in other cities.
Despite the defendants having no right over the trademarks, they have “undertaken various actions to illegally and unauthorisedly use the ‘LODHA’ Trade Marks with an intent to infringe and pass off their business as being associated with the Plaintiffs’ business.” “Given that defendant Abhinandan was a family member of Abhishek the plaintiffs were under a bonafide belief that the matter could be resolved amicably and therefore took no precipitative steps,” the plea added.
Despite this, the plea went on to state, that the defendants had ‘illegally’ suppressed material and relevant facts from the trademark registry and had made misrepresentations while applying for the impugned trademarks.
However, the lawyers representing Abhinandan Lodha and his firm denied claims made by his brother.
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