The “Biswa Bangla” logo belongs to the state government, additional solicitor general Kaushik Chanda submitted upon instruction from the trade mark department of the Union government before the Division Bench of Chief Justice Jyotirmoy Bhattacharya and Justice Arijit Banerjee of the Calcutta High Court on Friday. Abhishek Banerjee, presently a Trinamul Congress MP, had applied for the logo in 2013 but later withdrew it, it was further submitted.
A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Calcutta High Court seeking investigation by central agencies into the controversial “Biswa Bangla” trademark, which was created by state chief minister Mamata Banerjee for use by the state government.
Mukul Roy, one of the founders of the Trinamul Congress, who joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) last year, had at a rally in Kolkata last November triggered a controversy over the Biswa Bangla trademark by alleging that the chief minister’s nephew, Abhishek Banerjee, was the real owner of the most identifiable mark of the state government. It is used by all government departments, not just an eponymous enterprise.
Abhishek Banerjee, a youth leader of the Trinamul Congress and a member of the Lok Sabha, had filed for registration of Biswa Bangla with the trademark authorities as its proprietor in November 2013.
Once Roy kicked up a furore over the ownership of the trademark, the state government reacted sharply, claiming immediately that it had taken all necessary steps to make sure there was no infringement of intellectual property rights.
By the time Roy raised the matter about Abhishek Banerjee’s claim to Biswa Bangla, the trademark authorities had advertised his application for registration, but registration had yet not been granted. Within days, it came to light that Banerjee had withdrawn his application for registration of Biswa Bangla.
The PIL filed in the Calcutta High Court, alleged that the state government had spent “huge sum of money” to promote the trademark, despite Abhishek Banerjee claiming it to be his intellectual property. The administration has repeatedly said that the chief minister had designed the Biswa Bangla logo and had given it to the state government under an agreement in 2014.
The PIL, which names the chief minister and Abhishek Banerjee as respondents, questions if an attempt was made to build goodwill for a private property, and if the state would have taken any action at all to secure the trademark if Roy had not made uncomfortable allegations.