1. The petitioner is a businessman and the Director of two private limited companies; GG Management Solutions Private Limited and Bharath Integrated Solutions Private Limited. GG Management Solutions Private Limited was incorporated on 29.04.2010 with the name ‘GG Resources Management Private Limited’, which was later changed as GG Management Solutions Private Limited. The name ‘GG Management Solution Private Limited’ was chosen, since ‘GG’ is the abbreviation of petitioner’s name; Gireesh Gangadharan. The petitioner intends to start a new company for conducting business in software designing, development, customization, implementation, maintenance, testing, benchmarking, automation, developing, and dealing in computer software and solutions and to import, export, sell, purchase, distribute, host and undertake IT-enabled services, customer support, database management, data science, data processing and providing information and statistics to enhance customer experience of products. Being desirous of including the abbreviation GG for the new company also, petitioner proposed the name ‘GG Net Solutions Private Limited’. The relevant provisions of the Companies Act, 2013 require every person intending to incorporate a company has to commence the registration process by reserving the name of the company. The procedure for reservation is prescribed in the Companies (Incorporation) Rules, 2014. As per the Rules, the application for reservation has to be submitted through the web service available at www.mca.gov.in through the service, SPICE+ (Simplified Proforma for Incorporating Company Electronically Plus: INC-32). SPICE + is divided into two parts; SPICE+ Part A for name reservation and SPICE+ Part B for entry of documents required for incorporation. Accordingly, the petitioner submitted Ext.P3 application along with requisite documents. To the petitioner’s dismay, the application was rejected stating that the proposed name contained the word ‘GG’, which is a registered trademark and therefore, undesirable as per Rule 8A(1)(b) of the Companies (Incorporation) 5th Amendment Rules, 2019. The rejection of petitioner’s application was communicated under Ext.P4. Aggrieved, this writ petition is filed seeking the following reliefs;

“i. issue a writ of certiorari calling

for the records leading to Exhibit P-4 and quash the same;

ii. issue a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order, or direction directing the respondents to consider and approve SPICE+ Part A application to be submitted by the petitioner for reserving the

name 'GG Net Solutions Private Limited'

iii, issue a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order declaring that 'GG Net solutions Private Limited' cannot be compared to registered device mark 'GG' as shown in Table – I.”

2. Adv.Lakshmi Sreedhar, learned Counsel for the petitioner, contended that the rejection is per se illegal. The following submissions were made in In elaboration of the contention; As per Section 4(2) of the Companies Act, the name stated in the Memorandum of Association of the Company shall not be such that its use by the Company is undesirable in the opinion of the Central Government. Going by Rule 8A of the Companies (Incorporation) Rules, 2014, the name shall be considered undesirable if (a) it is prohibited under the provisions of section 3 of the Emblems and Names (Prevention and Improper Use) Act, 1950 (12 of 1950), (b) the name includes a trade mark registered under the Trade Marks Act, 1999 in the same class of goods or services in which the activity of the company is being carried out or is proposed to be carried out (c) the name includes any word or words which are offensive to any section of the people and (d) the proposed name is identical with, or too nearly resembles, the name of a limited liability partnership. Thus, the proposed name will be undesirable if the name includes the trademark registered under the Trade Marks Act, 1999 and is in the same class of goods in which the activity of the Company is being carried out or it proposed to be carried out. It is contended that since the object of the proposed company and that of the registered trademark holder being entirely different, the finding that the proposed name is undesirable cannot be sustained. Further, ‘GG’ is the registered device trade mark and not a word mark and cannot therefore be an impediment in registering a new company. Finally, it is contended that a large number of companies containing the name ‘GG’ were incorporated without objection. In support of this contention, attention is drawn to Table II in paragraph 10 of the writ petition;

3. Learned CGC countered the challenge by putting forth the following contentions;

The word mark GG is registered with Shri. Ravi Giani, sole proprietor of the trading firm, M/s Giani under Class 42 with application No. 4236276 w.e.f. 28.09.2020. The Goods and service description of that company are;

“Interior Design Service, Research and Development of new products for others, Design services; Planning and design of kitchens; New product design, Material Testing; Quality Control, surveying, Hosting Computer sites (websites); Providing search engines for the internet, Hosting web portals; Hosting e- commerce platforms on the Internet, Computer Programming, software as a service (SaaS); Server Hosting; Industrial Analyses and Research Services; Advisory services relating to Interior design."

As per the fourth schedule of the Trademarks Rules 2002, Class 42 includes the following activities under the head “Services”;

“Class 42 Scientific and technological services and research and design relating thereto; industrial analysis and research services; design and development of Computer hardware and Software.”

As the objects of the petitioner’s proposed company was found to be similar to that of the registered trademark and falling under the same class, the application was rejected for the following reasons;

“(a) The Objectives proposed by the petitioner (designing and development of software etc) are found related to Class 42 of the Trademark;

(b) As per site of the Registrar of Trademark, the Trademark holder have registered Word Mark "GG" under Class 42 and the description of the Trademark includes amongst others. activities relates to Computer Programming, etc which comes under Software development.

(c) The petitioner failed to produce NOC from the Registered Trademark Holder. Even the Petitioner did not explain how the objectives proposed by him are different from "Goods & Services Description" given in the site of Registered Trademark with Application No. 4236276.”

Finally it is submitted that the petitioner’s failure to explain as to how the objectives of the proposed company are different from the registered trademark, had compelled the authority to reject the application. It is submitted that, instead of rushing to this Court, the petitioner ought to have submitted a fresh e-form along with requisite documents and reply to the clarification. In such an event, the application would have been considered on merits.

4. There appears to be prima facie merit in the submission that the petitioner's application for reservation of name for his proposed company can be rejected only if name includes a trade mark registered in the same class of goods and services in which the activity of the company is proposed to be carried out. Even then, the respondent having made it clear that the petitioner is at liberty to file a fresh e-form along with clarification, this court need not consider and decide upon the legality of Ext.P4. Needless to say that the competent authority will have to decide whether Class 42, under which the trademark GG is registered, takes in the class of goods and services proposed to be carried out by the petitioner’s company. The respondents will also have to deal with the petitioner’s contention that several other companies were permitted to be incorporated with names containing GG. Going by the table extracted above, at least some of the companies were incorporated after the trademark GG was registered. Yet another pertinent aspect is the petitioner’s existing company, GG Management Solution Private Limited, was incorporated in the year 2010 and the present name given in the year 2016, much prior to the registration of the trademark.

5. The writ petition is accordingly disposed of, directing the third respondent to reconsider Ext. P3 application and pass fresh orders, uninfluenced by the earlier rejection. To effectuate proper consideration, the petitioner shall be afforded an opportunity to submit fresh documents and written explanation. The order, as directed above, shall be passed within three months of receipt of a copy of the judgment.