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The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday granted relief to Flipkart Internet Private Limited in a case pertaining to sale of counterfeit products on company's website. Court said that no coercive action will be taken against the company till further orders.

The matter was heard before the bench of Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Rajnish Kumar. The company had filed a criminal writ petition contending that the instant case was nothing but an abuse of process of law.

A First Information Report (FIR) was lodged at Lohamandi Police Station, District Agra against the company under Sections 420, 465, 467, 34 of the Indian Penal Code & Section 51(a)(i), 51(b)(ii) of Copyright Act, 1957. 

Challenging the same, the company contended that it is merely an E-commerce marketplace that only provided the platform for sale and purchase of articles/books, and the allegation of violation of Copyright Act, 1957 can at best be against the actual publisher and not against the intermediary i.e. the company.

Flipkart also claimed the protection of Section 79 of the Information Technology Act. Section 79 in The Information Technology Act, 2000 says that any social media intermediary will not be in the radar of legal action for any third party information, data, or communication link made available or hosted by him.

Therefore, taking note of the contention raised on behalf of the company, Court observed that the matter requires consideration and asked all the respondent parties to file counter affidavit within six weeks. 

Court added that till the next date no coercive action shall be taken against Flipkart pursuant to impugned First Information Report provided it cooperates in the investigation.

Case Title: M/S Flipkart Internet Private Limited v. State Of U.P. And 2 Others