Supreme Court rejects Scotch association's plea

According to a report in the Mint, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition by the Scotch Whisky Association seeking a review of a judgment that allowed Khoday India Ltd to use the words Scot and Scotch in its products.

“We have gone through the review petition and the connected papers. No ground has been made out to review our order. The review petition is dismissed.”said the bench headed by justice Satya Brata Sinha. The Supreme court had allowed Khoday India, the seller of the Peter Scot brand of whisky in the country, to use the term in its last judgment. The Indian liquor manufacturer does not infringe the Intellectual Property Rights Act, a bench of justice Sinha and justice Lokeshwar Singh Panta said in that judgment. The Scotch Whisky Association advocate had submitted that only those companies that produce whisky in Scotland can use the terms to sell their brands.

Khoday, which also sells Hercules rum and Constantino brandy, had challenged the November 2007 decision of the Madras high court which restrained Indian companies from using Scot or Scotch.