New Delhi: A Delhi court has directed the e-commerce company Amazon to remove Pakistan-manufactured Rooh Afza from the list of items it sells in India.
The court ordered Amazon to remove “Rooh Afza” from its listing within 48 hours. The court said that the e-commerce company had included a similar product named “Rooh Afza” in its list of retail items. Hamdard National Foundation and Hamdard Laboratories (India) had said in their petition that they own the rights to the ‘logo’ of “Hamdard” and “Rooh Afza” but last year they noticed that some other entities were also selling “Rooh Afza” on Amazon.
The Delhi High Court in its judgment said that “Rooh Afza” is a drink that has been consumed by the people of India for more than a century. Expressing surprise that an imported product was being sold in India on Amazon without the manufacturer providing full details of the product, the Delhi High Court has directed Amazon to remove the listings of Pakistan-manufactured Rooh Afza from its platform in India.
Justice Prathiba M Singh in an order released on Wednesday said, “The listings of infringing ‘ROOH AFZA’ products on the website http://www.amazon.in not originating from the Plaintiffs (Hamdard National Foundation) shall be removed within 48 hours.”
Rooh Afza was first introduced by Hakim Hafiz Abdul Majeed. But after the partition, his elder son remained in India while the younger one moved to Pakistan. Hamdard National Foundation owns rights over the drink in India and Hamdard Laboratories (Waqf) manufactures it in Pakistan.
