Vintage Teas moves Court for recall of search warrant and summons

President’s Counsel Shanaka Ranasinghe appearing on behalf of Vintage Teas Ceylon Ltd. on 17 October supported an application before the Colombo Magistrate’s Court (No. 6) to have a summons and search warrant issued on a plaint filed by The Capital Maharaja Organisation Ltd. recalled on the basis that the complainant had obtained the search warrant and summons on a suppression of material facts and that therefore the complainant was not entitled in law to the relief prayed for.
The Capital Maharaja Organisation had earlier filed a private plaint before the Magistrate’s Court alleging that Vintage Teas was infringing two of its trademarks, ‘Emona’ and ‘Canary Device’.
On the basis of the search warrant obtained in the case, Police had seized several packages of tea belonging to Vintage Teas.
Making submissions before the Magistrate, Shanaka Ranasinghe PC stated that The Capital Maharaja Organisation had failed to disclose that Vintage Teas had already filed action in the Commercial High Court seeking a declaration of non-infringement of the relevant trademarks and that The Capital Maharaja Organisation had already filed Answer in the said case seeking interim and permanent injunctive relief restraining Vintage Teas from using the relevant marks.
The President’s Counsel noted that The Capital Maharaja Organisation had not moved the Commercial High Court for an enjoining order and that the private plaint had been filed and a search warrant had been issued while the substantive matter was pending inquiry before the Commercial High Court. The President’s Counsel also noted that Vintage Teas was only exporting the Emona brand tea to Kosovo to the registered owner of the Emona Brand trademark in Kosovo and that Vintage Teas had in fact been so exporting tea since 2001.
After hearing submissions of the counsel, the learned Magistrate directed that written submissions be tendered by both parties before an order was delivered. The case will be taken up next on 27 October.
The Magistrate also ordered that the tea already seized by Police on the strength of the search warrant be stored at the stores of Vintage Teas.