ew Delhi:  Income Tax raid on BBC head offices. BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai were raided. During the search, the officials seized the phones of the employees. The office officials told the employees to leave the office and go back to their homes. The BBC offices are being searched as part of an investigation into tax evasion. Officials told PTI that the department is examining documents related to the company’s business operations and documents related to its Indian arm.

Last Friday, the Supreme Court rejected a plea seeking a ban on the BBC in India.

New Delhi: The CBI on Thursday conducted searches at the premises of former finance secretary Arvind Mayaram after filing an FIR against him and a UK-based company for alleged corruption in the supply of exclusive color shift security thread for Indian bank notes, officials said.

The CBI, in its FIR, alleged that Mayaram, the UK-based company De La Rue International Ltd, and unidentified officials of the finance ministry and RBI hatched a criminal conspiracy to extend undue favor to the firm.

The agency alleged that Mayaram as finance secretary granted an “illegal” three-year extension to an “expired contract” with the company for supplying exclusive color shift security thread without taking any mandatory security clearance from the home ministry or informing the then finance minister, they said.
The extension granted by Mayaram was allegedly the fourth, the FIR said. The CBI registered the FIR under IPC sections related to criminal conspiracy and cheating and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

It was followed by searches at the Jaipur and Delhi residence of the 1978-batch retired IAS officer, days after he had joined the Bharat Jodo Yatra of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

The agency had registered a preliminary inquiry in 2018 on a complaint from the Chief Vigilance Officer of the Department of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance.

Based on its findings, the CBI has converted it into a regular case against Mayaram, now an economic advisor to Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.

The agency, in its FIR, said that the Center had entered into a five-year agreement with De La Rue International Ltd for the supply of exclusive color shift security thread for Indian banknotes in 2004. The contract was extended four times till December 31, 2015.

The agency has alleged that the then finance minister had authorized the Reserve Bank of India to enter an exclusivity agreement with the suppliers of exclusive security features on behalf of the government of India, which was signed with De La Rue on September 4, 2004.

The agreement with the company specifically mentioned that the company had developed an exclusive India-specific green to blue color shift clear text MRT machine-readable security thread for use in Indian banknote paper as a security feature and for which the company holds exclusive manufacturing rights.

The CBI found that the company had filed for the patent in India on June 28, 2004, which was published on March 13, 2009, and was granted on June 17, 2011, which shows that at the time of the agreement, it did not have a valid patent.

“Enquiry has further revealed that De La Rue made false claims of holding patent and they did not have any patent for their color shift thread at the time of presentation in 2002 and their selection in 2004,” the CBI has alleged.

Corruption in the supply of security thread of currency notes; CBI has registered a case against Ran Finance Secretary Arvind Mayaram.

New Delhi: Delhi High Court ruled in favor of Oreo in the Oreo-Fabio dispute. The Delhi High Court has restrained Parle Products Pvt Ltd from using the name Fabio/Fab!O for its chocolate biscuits filled with vanilla cream in a trademark infringement case filed by Intercontinental Great Brands for infringing the trademark of Oreo Biscuits.

A single bench of Justice C Harishankar passed the order granting interim protection to Oreo. The court also observed that Parle was required to pronounce fab-o as fa-bee-yo in its advertisements.

The two are apparently similar. The court pointed out that like the name, its contents, form and cover are also identical. The court has banned the use of this trade mark and said that the ban will not apply to the biscuits currently in the market.

In January 2020, Parle launched a range of vanilla cream filled chocolate biscuits called Fab!O. Oreo alleged that Oreo biscuits had already been launched in the market before that. The Oreo company had alleged that Parle’s other ranges of biscuits are using the name Fabio and Fab!O only for this biscuit.