High Court reserves verdict in Britannia-ITC biscuit pack row

Delhi High court on Thursday reserved its verdict on Britannia Industries Ltd's plea challenging a single judge's order restraining them from using the packaging of its 'Nutri Choice Digestive Zero' biscuits in its present form. A bench of justices B D Ahmed and Ashutosh Kumar said they will pronounce their decision shortly on Britannia's plea which has claimed that the single judge's September 6 decision was bad in law and cannot be sustained.

It further said that the order restraining it from using its 'Nutri Choice Digestive Zero' biscuits wrapper in its present form on the ground that it was "deceptively similar" to packaging of ITC's Sunfeast 'Farmlite Digestive All Good' biscuits, was also "erroneous".

"We have started Nutri Choice Digestive biscuit way back in 2008. They (ITC) have in fact copied us," the counsel for Britannia, an Indian food products company, said, claiming it was the "market leader". Referring to the design of the biscuit packets, Britannia contended that it does not want to come close to ITC, "but they should also not come close to us".

ITC's counsel on the other hand claimed it was Britannia which had "adopted" their packaging as even the text on their packs were "replicated". Earlier, the bench had refrained from passing any interim order on Britannia's oral request to allow manufacturing of their product as it was stopped by the single judge,