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High court imposes Rs 10 lakh fine for Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali

New Delhi: The Madras High Court Thursday barred Ramdev’s Patanjali Ayurved from using the trademark ‘Coronil’ for a drug it developed and marketed as a cure for the novel coronavirus.

The court’s order came while hearing a suit filed by a Chennai-based firm which claimed that ‘Coronil’ is a trademark owned by it since 1993. The company’s registered trademark, called ‘CORONIL-92 B’, is an acid inhibitor product to clean heavy machinery and chemical preparations for industrial use.

(AP Photo/ Manish Swarup)

The plaintiff company said it had renewed its trademark till 2027.

The high court observed, “The defendants have invited this litigation on themselves. A simple check with the Trade Marks Registry would have revealed that ‘Coronil’ is a registered trademark. If they had, and had still, with audacity, used the name ‘Coronil’, then they deserve no consideration at all.”

While making absolute an interim injunction passed earlier against Patanjali, Justice C.V. Karthikeyan also imposed a fine of Rs 10 lakh on the company.

Even though it claims to be a Rs 10 crore company, said the judge, Patanjali has been “chasing further profits by exploiting the fear and panic among the general public by projecting a cure for the coronavirus, when actually their ‘Coronil Tablet’ is not a cure but rather an immunity booster for cough, cold and fever.”

The court ordered the fine amount to be equally divided between the Adyar Cancer Institute and the Government Yoga and Naturopathy Medical College and Hospital in Arumbakkam by 21 August.

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