Delhi High Court restrains websites, social media platforms from misusing NDTV trademark

The Delhi High Court on August 20 granted an ex parte ad-interim injunction in favour of New Delhi Television Limited (NDTV), restraining several websites, YouTube channels, Telegram groups, X handles and Facebook pages from unlawfully using the broadcaster’s well-known trademark “NDTV” [New Delhi Television v. Ashok Kumar and ors]..Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora noted that NDTV had established a strong prima facie case for the protection of its intellectual property rights. “Defendants are indulging in unauthorisedly using/ promoting deceptively similar variants of the Plaintiff’s trademark ‘NDTV’ and trying to create an impression to the general public that they are connected/associated with the Plaintiff Company," the Court found. The judge added that the balance of convenience lay in favour of NDTV and that any continued misuse of its mark would cause it irreparable harm that could not be compensated in monetary terms..NDTV had argued that unknown entities were operating websites such as ndtvnews.com, ndtvhindu.com, ndtvforums.com, ndtvbd.com, and ndtv24.in, all of which incorporated its registered trademarks in their entirety. The broadcaster also pointed out that over 120 X (formerly Twitter) handles, 35 YouTube channels, 16 Telegram groups, and 86 Facebook accounts were masquerading as NDTV-affiliated platforms.NDTV's counsel Kripa Pandit submitted that such impersonation was a concerted digital attack on NDTV’s identity and standing as a credible news organisation, with the potential to mislead viewers and damage public trust in journalism.NDTV placed on record that its trademark was declared a well-known mark by the Trademarks Registry in February 2025, and emphasised its longstanding reputation since its founding in 1988. The broadcaster recorded revenues of over ₹282 crore in FY 2024–25..The Court proceeded to grant it interim relief by restraining the unauthorised use of its mark through the following directions:Domain registrars (Dynadot, NameCheap, GoDaddy, BigRock, Sav.com, and others) were ordered to lock and suspend 13 infringing domains and disclose registrant details. Google and YouTube were directed to take down 35 infringing channels and share the account information of those running such channels. Telegram was asked to block 16 groups using NDTV’s name and disclose the IP addresses of those running such groups. X Corp. was directed to suspend 121 handles unlawfully incorporating the NDTV mark. Meta Platforms was ordered to remove 86 infringing Facebook pages and accounts. DoT and MeitY were directed to notify ISPs to block access to the infringing websites..The Court also permitted NDTV to implead additional infringing platforms in the future, thereby ensuring that the injunction could be automatically extended to them as well..The plaintiff was represented by Advocates Kripa Pandit, Prabhu Tandon, and Christopher Thomas..The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), was represented by Central Government Standing Counsel (CGSC) Nidhi Raman with Advocate Om Ram.Other defendants were represented by Advocates Yash Raj, Aishwarya Kane, Neel Mason, Udit Tewari, Nikhil Bharti, Madhav Khosla, Varun Pathak, Amee Rana, Akhil Shandilya and Charu Sharma.[Read Order]