Bombay High Court Restrains Fake Websites and fraudulent franchise offers that use the NATURAL ice cream marks, granting ad-interim relief against unknown John Doe defendants on the plaintiffs’ allegations, which are yet to be tested at trial.
Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has restrained unknown persons from using the NATURAL family of trademarks on counterfeit websites, emails and social media and from offering fraudulent franchise opportunities, in a suit by the owners of the Juhu-born NATURAL ice cream brand for trademark and copyright infringement and passing off [Siddhant Ice Creams LLP and Another v. John Doe(s) and Others].
Justice Madhav J. Jamdar passed the ad-interim order on October 8, 2026 in Interim Application (L) No. 22104 of 2026 in Commercial IP Suit (L) No. 328 of 2026, and listed the application for further consideration on January 7, 2027.
The plaintiffs’ case
Plaintiff No. 1, Siddhant Ice Creams LLP, is the registered proprietor of the NATURAL family of marks, and Plaintiff No. 2 is its master franchisee, which also manufactures NATURAL ice creams for the franchise network. The business was founded in 1984 by the late Raghunandan Kamath from a single parlour in Juhu, and the plaintiffs told the Court that they have over 400 employees and 193 franchisees across India.
The suit is against Defendant No. 1, described as one or more unknown persons, who are alleged to operate under several aliases. The plaintiffs contend that they run a counterfeit website that mimics the brand and send forged franchise letters and emails to unsuspecting people, so as to collect payments for franchise licences, and that the website wrongly names a person as the founder of the business. GoDaddy.com LLC, the Department of Telecommunications and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology were impleaded only for the limited purpose of complying with orders to block the deceptive websites. These are the plaintiffs’ allegations and have not been tested.
What the Court held
Justice Jamdar noted that the plaint and its exhibits show the plaintiffs have been in the ice cream business since 1984, and that their sales figures and promotional expenses show that Defendant No. 1 is using the trade name NATURAL Ice Cream for a mala fide purpose, to take advantage of the plaintiffs’ market. The Court held:
“Accordingly, a very strong prima facie case is made for grant of ad interim relief in terms of prayer clauses (a), (b) and (g) till futher Orders.”
Those prayers restrain Defendant No. 1, including unknown persons found to be engaged in infringement, and anyone associated with them, from using the NATURAL family of marks or any identical or similar mark as a trade mark, trade name, domain name, email address, social media handle or messaging group; from infringing the plaintiffs’ copyright in the NATURAL marks; and from passing off, marketing or offering franchise opportunities through the impugned website and associated email addresses.
Why the order matters
The order is a John Doe style injunction, which allows a brand owner to act against anonymous operators of counterfeit websites and to have intermediaries, here the domain registrar and the telecom and IT authorities, cooperate with blocking. It is an ad-interim measure, the allegations of fraud are not established against any person, and the final position will depend on the suit.
Case Title: Siddhant Ice Creams LLP and Another v. John Doe(s) and Others [Interim Application (L) No. 22104 of 2026 in Commercial IP Suit (L) No. 328 of 2026]
Bench: Justice Madhav J. Jamdar, Bombay High Court
Date of Order: October 8, 2026
Appearances: Advocates Hrishikesh Shukla, Rohit Iyengar and Mahir Amir, instructed by Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas and Co., for the plaintiffs; Advocate S. P. Rajurkar for Defendant No. 2