Recently, an order was passed by the Delhi High Court wherein it restrained Jindal Steel and Power Ltd, as well as various platforms such as Facebook and YouTube from "displaying, disseminating or propagating" a report by the infrastructural think tank First Construction Council, (FCC) regarding TMT steel bars, which bore the Kamdhenu Trademark. This report, titled 'Is India's 5.7 million Infrastructural Investment at risk?', stated that TMT bars with the Kamadhenu TM had failed a quality test by the FCC.

The matter was raised by Kamdhenu when it first became aware of leaflets by Jindal Steel which claimed that TMT bars had failed the quality test of FCC. Kamdhenu had alleged in the suit that the FCC might have come to the said conclusions in the impugned after testing counterfeit products of Kamdhenu, procured at the instance of Jindal Steel.

The steel company also alleged in its suit that there was a likelihood that FCC might have procured counterfeit Kamdhenu TMT steel bars as its sample from market and prepared a fake test report at the instance of JSPL.1

The court therefore directed all social media platforms to take off the all such defamatory/disparaging videos/ leaflets/ pictures and other such content that is misleading and is already being circulated over the internet2 and the impugned report from their sites, and has further issued a notice to Jindal Steel, Facebook, FCC, YouTube and WhatsApp to give their stands on Kamdhenu's claims alleging defamation. The matter is listed next on November 15, 2018.

Footnotes

 1 https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/hc-restrains-jspl-fb-youtube-frompropagating-report-on-kamdhenu-tmt-steel-bars/articleshow/66526497.cms

2 https://www.latestlaws.com/latest-news/hc-restrains-jindal-other-social-media-websites-frompropagating- report-disparaging-kamdhenu-tmt-steel-bars/

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