Delhi Court Grants Ad-Interim Injunction, Summons Telegram In Education Institute's IP Infringement Case

The Tis Hazari District Court in Delhi has granted an ad-interim ex-parte injunction to protect the intellectual property of Malkans Training Institute Pvt. Ltd. and its founders, Vishal B. Malkan and Meghana V. Malkan, in a trademark and copyright infringement suit against Telegram Messengers LLP and others.

The court also issued summons to the defendants, including Telegram, after observing that the plaintiffs had made out a strong prima facie case of trademark and copyright infringement as well as passing off.

District Judge (Commercial) Rajesh Kumar Goel further noted that infringing material was being continuously hosted and disseminated on Telegram's platform and needed to be taken down to prevent irreparable harm to the education institutes' business, goodwill, and reputation.

Consequently, the court directed Telegram to disable and remove the infringing channels, bots, groups, and URLs within three days.

Malkans Training Institute Pvt. Ltd. and its founders approached the District Court seeking permanent and mandatory injunctions as well as damages, alleging trademark and copyright infringement, piracy, passing off, unfair competition and allied wrongful acts.

They sought urgent interim relief to restrain Telegram, various websites, and unidentified defendants from unlawfully reproducing and selling their proprietary financial and trading training content under the brand “MALKANSVIEW”.

The financial education institute, founded in 2008, told the Court that it provides specialised educational programmes, workshops, webinars, online courses and digital content relating to stock market and trading training under its trademarked brand.

It submitted that despite having previously reported more than 2,500 instances of infringement on Telegram, new infringing channels continued to emerge, impersonating the institute and misappropriating its original literary and cinematographic works for commercial gain.

The institute argued that urgent interim protection was necessary as the alleged illegal activity was continuing and recurring, causing irreparable harm to their goodwill, reputation, and business interests.

They further alleged that the infringing channels and websites were using their trademark, trade name, and the names and images of the founders to create a false association in the minds of the public, thereby committing acts of trademark infringement and passing off.

Upon perusing the documents placed on record, including ownership certificates relating to the trademark and copyrighted works, the Court held that the plaintiffs were entitled to interim protection.

“The plaintiffs have further been able to establish prima facie that certain defendants are required to be restrained from hosting and publishing the infringed material/content similar to as that of plaintiffs work. Thus, the plaintiffs have made out a strong prima facie case of trademark/copyright infringement and also of passing off in their favour” the Court observed.

Accordingly, the court directed Telegram Messengers LLP (defendant no.1) to remove the infringing content, observing that:

“defendant no.1 is restrained from posting, hosting, publishing, uploading, distributing, re-publishing or otherwise using, in any manner whatsoever, the Plaintiffs trademark/copyright which is there in the plaintiffs work on Telegram or any other digital platform. Defendant no.1 is further directed to remove/disable and take down the infringing telegram channels/groups/bots/URLs, as pleaded in the plaint within next three days.”

The court also restrained the remaining defendants from using the plaintiffs' trademarks, trade name, or copyrighted content in any manner till the next date of hearing. Summonses were issued to the opposite parties and the matter has been listed for further hearing on April 8, 2026.