A bench comprising justices Mridula Bhatkar and S F Vajifdar said posting a notice on a website does not amount to communication to the concerned party and ICAI's plea cannot be "abandoned" on the grounds that it had failed to respond to such a notice by Registrar of Trade Marks in the stipulated time.
The judges asked the Registrar of Trade Marks to consider ICAI's application afresh as it was not sent any formal communication.
The respondent, the Registrar of Trade Marks, has not indicated anything that obliged the petitioner, ICAI, to inspect the website on a daily basis nor did it indicate any rule or practice by which the petitioner is legally bound to take notice of anything that is posted on the respondent's website, the judges said.
Rule 38(4) by itself does not require an applicant for registration to inspect the respondent's website. Therefore, the petitioner cannot be imputed with knowledge of the said letter dated September 19, 2011, posted on the website of the Registrar of Trade Marks, the court said.
"The mere posting of the letter on the website does not constitute communication of the objection or proposal in writing as required by Rule 38(4). The letter of September 19, 2011, at the highest, can be said to have been communicated to the petitioner only on the date on which the petitioner noticed it on the website, that is, March 13, 2012," the court said.