Delhi High Court Restrains Misuse Of HCL Trademark In Alleged Fraudulent 'HCL Mediclinic' Scheme

The Delhi High Court has issued an ex-parte ad-interim injunction to protect HCL Corporation Pvt Ltd against unidentified parties who are allegedly misrepresenting themselves as company officials to dupe members of the public and job seekers.

According to the suit filed by HCL, the company recently became aware of illegal and fraudulent activities by rogue third parties. HCL alleges that these individuals have been issuing fraudulent emails, calls, and messages while posing as HCL employees.

The fraudulent activities allegedly operate on two fronts:

• Fraudulent Joint Ventures: Approaching members of the public and third parties with false proposals to start a joint venture with the plaintiff as “HCL Mediclinic,” luring innocent members of the public into making substantial deposits into fake bank accounts purportedly in the name of the plaintiff.

• Job Scams: Offering fake job vacancies with lucrative remuneration and charging innocent candidates money for purported job-related services.

Justice Tushar Rao Gedela observed that HCL, as the registered proprietor of the “HCL” mark since at least 1997, has established a strong prima facie case for an interim injunction. The court noted that HCL has built immense goodwill and reputation in the healthcare sector where its HCL Avitas division has delivered over 10,00,000 health check-ups since inception.

HCL had submitted before the bench that the defendants are using the HCL trademark along with the company's healthcare tagline, “Making Corporate India Healthier.”

The court observed that the defendants' unauthorised use of the mark for cheating and scamming the public would cause irreparable loss and injury to HCL that could not be compensated in monetary terms.

The Bench observed that “the defendant nos.1 to 12 are fraudulently and unauthorizedly using the HCL trademarks as also the registered websites/domain names, coupled with the fact that the said use is for cheating and scamming the public, irreparable loss and injury shall be caused to the plaintiff which may not be compensated in monetary terms.”

The High Court, accordingly, directed that the defendants are restrained from using the plaintiff's trademarks, including HCL and HCL Healthcare, or any deceptively or confusingly similar marks for healthcare services or any other products or services.

GoDaddy.com LLC was ordered to disclose registrant details of the infringing domains hclhealth.in and hclhealthcares.com and to lock and suspend the said domains.

WhatsApp, Reliance Jio Infocom Limited, Bharti Airtel Limited, and Vodafone Idea Limited have been directed to disclose the identities associated with specified mobile numbers and to block or suspend those numbers and accounts.

The State Bank of India and Punjab National Bank were ordered to disclose complete KYC details and freeze specified accounts referred to in the order.

The matter is scheduled for further proceedings before the Joint Registrar on April 21, 2026, with the next court hearing set for August 6, 2026.