I had petitioned the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) requesting a 'suo motu' action against the grant of Geographical Indication (GI) tag to Tirupati Laddu immediately after the dismissal of Mohanraj's petitition by Madras High Court. The petition sought if general public had recourse to IPAB in the form of ‘public interest petition', as they were not ‘aggrieved persons' or ‘persons interested' per se.
I received a reply from IPAB yesterday. Reply letter DY. NO. 3111/2010/6272 dated 20th August 2010 signed by Shri. G. Vijayaraghavan, Deputy Registrar of IPAB reads as follows
"With reference to your letter dated 2nd July 2010, I'm to inform you that IPAB has no power to take 'suo moto' action as requested by you, as the act provides for filing rectification application under Section 27 of the Geographical Indication of Goods (Registration & Procedure) Act, 1999".
It may be a clerical error that the Deputy Registrar refers the statute as GI of Goods (Registration & Procedure) Act instead of GI of Goods (Registration & Protection) Act. However, the 'bare assertion fallacy' in averring legislative incompetency for 'suo motu' action is debatable.
Sub-section (4) of Section 27 of GI Act says - The tribunal, of its own motion,may, after giving notice in the prescribed manner to the parties concerned and after giving them an opportunity of being heard, make any order referred to in sub-section (1) or sub-section (2).
It is very clear from the above that the tribunal (Appellate Board or Registrar) can proceed on its own volition for cancellation or rectification of GI Register. To the best of my understanding, this is what we mean by 'suo motu' power.
Sub-section (1) of section 27 says - "On application made in the prescribed manner to the Appellate Board or to the Registrar by any person aggrieved, the tribunal may make such order as it may think fit for cancelling or varying the registration of a geographical indication or authorised user on the ground of any contravention, or failure to observe the condition entered on the register in relation thereto."
Sub-section (2) of Section 27 says "Any person aggrieved by the absence or omission from the register of any entry, or by any entry made in the register without sufficient cause, or by any entry wrongly remaining on the register, or by any error or defect in any entry in the register, may apply in the prescribed manner to the Appellate Board or to the Registrar, and the tribunal may make such order for making, expunging or varying the entry as it may think fit."
R.S. Praveen Raj
Scientist - IP Management & Technology Transfer
National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science & Technology (NIIST),
(Formerly RRL, Trivandrum), Industrial Estate P.O., Pappanamcode,
Thiruvananthapuram – 695 019, Kerala, India
http://secularcitizen.blogspot.com/2009/12/r-s-praveen-raj.html
