Rooh Afza banned in India

In a highly discriminatory act the Delhi High Court has permanently restrained retailers on Amazon.in from selling Pakistan-made Rooh Afza banned in India on the e-commerce website following a trademark claim made by the famous sherbet’s Indian manufacturer. The judge’s ruling said that the listings of infringing Rooh Afza products on the Amazon website shall be removed within 48 hours. Rooh Afza was first sold in 1907 in old Delhi by Hakim Hafiz Abdul Majeed, a traditional healing practitioner widely known for practicing traditional medicine. After Partition, one of his sons stayed in Delhi while the other moved to Pakistan and his younger son Hakim Said later became Governor Sindh while heading Hamdard Foundation. They set up factories in both the countries as well as one in East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh in 1971 under two firms. Hamdard National Foundation owns the Rooh Afza rights in India while Hamdard Laboratories (Waqf) manufactures it in Pakistan. The pretext of banning Rooh Afza was the infringement of manufacturing rights though the bottles manufactured in Pakistan clearly mentioned where they come from. Rooh Afza is a very popular drink particularly amongst Muslims and it is also exported to many countries in the world. TW

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