Domain Name Infringement, S.34 Restrains Judicial Interference In Issues Of 'Subjective Satisfaction'; Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court on December 13 held that the ambit of Section 34 of the Arbitration & Conciliation Act 1996 strictly restrained the Court from interfering in issues of interpretation of contractual conventions and those matters where the arbitrator is required to be “subjectively satisfied” on questions of facts.The single-judge bench of Justice C. Hari Shankar in a petition against an arbitral award also discussed the application of the observations made by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the landmark case of Satyam Infoway Ltd. v. Siffynet Solutions Ltd. in cases relating to domain name infringementThe facts of the case are that the Respondent filed a complaint seeking cancellation of the domain name www.quantumuniversity.edu.in (in which “quantumuniversity” is known as the “Secondary Level Domain” or “SLD” and “.edu.in” is known as the “Top Level Domain” or “domain extension”) registered in favour of the petitioner on 4 August 2017. The respondent alleged that it was a prior registrant of the domain name www.quantumuniversity.com as well as various other domain names, all of which used the SLD “quantumuniversity” with various extensions. The respondent was based out of Hawaii while the petitioner was recognised as a “Quantum University” by way of legislation passed by the Uttrakhand Legislature in 2016. The respondent alleged that the petitioner's domain name, www.quantumuniversity.edu.in, was infringing upon the respondent's domain name, quantumuniversity.com, which had been registered earlier, due to the shared "quantumuniversity" second-level domain (SLD).Clause 10 of the.IN Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (INDRP), which contemplates the cancellation of an infringing domain name, was thus invoked by the respondent. Having referred the matter to arbitration, the Learned Arbitrator held the award dated May 4, 2021, in favour of the respondent and cancelled the petitioner's domain name for being registered in bad faith under section 4 of INDRP. The High Court in an application under section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (“the 1996 Act”) filed by the petitioner was tasked with the question of whether the arbitral award be set aside on being perverse, illegal, contrary to public policy and fundamental policy of Indian Law. Appearing on behalf of the petitioner, Senior Advocate Mr Jayant Mehta challenged the award on the following- firstly, the award effectively rendered the provisions of the Quantum University Act, 2016 as redundant and otiose; secondly, the respondent not being a “University” u/s 23 of the UGC Act is not entitled to use the term as part of its name in India; thirdly, the respondent failed the qualify the cumulative satisfaction of pre-conditions u/s (4)(a),(b) and (c) of INDRP for the complaint to be maintainable before the.IN registry. On the other hand, the respondent was represented by Senior Advocate Mr. Sudhir Makkar who argued that the arbitral proceedings did not concern trademark infringement but rather focused on domain name infringement, specifically regarding the petitioner's use of a domain name that was deceptively similar to the 'quantum university-formative domain names owned by the respondent. Further, the respondent being well aware of the fact that “edu. in” can only be used by educational institutions in India was not intending to use “edu. in” as part of its domain name. Secondly, the reliance placed by the petitioner on S.23 of the UGC Act was completely misplaced as the respondent had not set up any university in India, and was not intending to do so. The services provided by the respondents were entirely online. The mere fact that those services could be accessed in India, would not result in the respondent falling foul of Section 23 of the UGC Act. The Court in its decision, analysed two aspects, firstly the scope of interference of the Court u/s 34 of the Act of 1996 by the Court with regards to the arbitral interpretation of contractual covenants; secondly, whether the learned Arbitrator's addressal of submissions and interpretation of the relevant clauses of the INDRP suffers from patent illegality or perversity, or are contrary to the fundamental policy of Indian law, as would justify interference by this Court under Section 34 of the 1996 Act. The Court essentially outlined the restrictive scope of intervention u/s 34 of the 1996 Act and made several key observations while holding that the award suffered from no such illegality or perversity. Restricted Scope of Judicial Interference on Arbitral Interpretation of Contractual Conventions: Relying upon the observations made by the Apex Court in Hindustan Construction Company Ltd. v. National Highways Authority of India 2023 SCC OnLine SC 1063, the bench held that the occasion for the interpretation of contractual provisions by the Court would only arise if, based on such interpretation, the correctness of the decision—whether it be an order or an award—under challenge before the...

Domain Name Infringement, S.34 Restrains Judicial Interference In Issues Of 'Subjective Satisfaction'; Delhi High Court

Anmol Kaur Bawa

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