The Delhi High Court has dismissed Imagine Marketing’s fresh interim injunction application seeking restraint on Exotic Mile’s standalone wordmark “BOULT” in the long-running BOAT v. BOULT trademark dispute, holding that a second interim injunction application cannot be used to recover relief not granted earlier, absent changed circumstances or undue hardship.
The Court held that a party cannot file a fresh application under Order XXXIX Rules 1 and 2 CPC to seek substantially the same interim injunction that was not granted earlier on the same factual foundation, unless there is a specifically pleaded and established case of changed circumstances or undue hardship. It further held that an appellate court’s later observation clarifying the scope of an earlier interim order does not amount to a “changed circumstance”, and a litigant cannot cure the earlier non-grant of relief by calling it an inadvertent omission or oversight.
A Single Judge Bench of Justice Jyoti Singh said the controversy was narrow: whether the plaintiff could now obtain an interim injunction against the wordmark “BOULT” when the earlier Jan 21, 2020 judgment had not granted that relief. The Bench noted that while the ex parte order of Sep 25, 2019 had covered the wordmark “BOULT”, the final interim order dated Jan 21, 2020 clearly did not. The Bench rejected the plaintiff’s argument that the omission was merely accidental. It held that a plain reading of the Jan 21, 2020 judgment made it “clear as day” that there was no injunction against the wordmark “BOULT”.
On maintainability, the Bench reiterated that a second injunction application on the same facts is ordinarily not maintainable unless there is a genuine change in circumstances or undue hardship. Referring to the legal position under Order XXXIX Rule 4 CPC and the Delhi High Court ruling in Rakesh Madan and Another v. Rajasthan Financial Corporation and Others [2009 SCC OnLine Del 39], the Bench held that successive injunction applications cannot be used to re-agitate the same relief before another stage of the same proceedings.
The Bench found that neither of the two exceptions was made out. First, there was no “changed circumstance”. The Division Bench judgment did not create any new legal or factual situation; it merely recorded the obvious position that the Single Judge had restricted the injunction to the device marks. That clarification could not be treated as a fresh circumstance permitting a second injunction application.
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Second, there was no pleading or proof of “undue hardship”. The plaintiff had relied on screenshots of e-commerce websites to say the defendant was still using “BOULT”, but the defendant responded that those were archived or discontinued listings, and the plaintiff did not rebut that in rejoinder. The Bench also noted the defendant’s consistent stand that it had transitioned to “GOBOULT” and was no longer manufacturing goods under the “BOULT” mark.
The Bench also observed that the core basis of the present application remained exactly the same as the first one: that “BOULT” is phonetically similar to “BOAT”. That ground had already been taken in the earlier injunction application as well, and therefore the present plea was, in substance, an attempt to obtain the same relief once again by describing the earlier non-grant as an “oversight”.
The Bench further held that entertaining the application would effectively amount to rewriting both the Jan 21, 2020 Single Judge judgment and the Sep 15, 2025 Division Bench judgment, especially since the earlier judgment had merged with the appellate order restricting relief to the three device marks. The earlier withdrawn clarification application also weighed against the plaintiff, because the same relief was now being sought again in a circuitous manner.
Briefly, Imagine Marketing Pvt Ltd., the plaintiff, filed the suit alleging that Exotic Mile was using the mark “BOULT” and related device marks in relation to goods in the same category as the plaintiff’s “BOAT/boAt” marks, thereby causing infringement and passing off. At the initial stage, on Sep 25, 2019, the Court had granted an ex parte ad interim injunction restraining use of the wordmark “BOULT” as well as deceptively similar marks. Thereafter, when the defendant sought vacation of the interim order, the Single Judge held that “BOAT” and “BOULT” were phonetically similar, noted similarity in logos, get-up, colour scheme and use of the word “PLUG”, and granted interim protection only against certain device marks and the tagline “UNPLUG YOURSELF”.
When the defendant appealed, the Division Bench affirmed the injunction only to the extent of the impugned device marks, while setting aside the restraint on the tagline. During the appeal, the defendant stated that it had stopped using the impugned marks, except some marks it was phasing out from August 2025, and had transitioned to “GOBOULT”. The Division Bench clarified that “GOBOULT” had not been challenged before the Single Judge and any challenge to it would have to be taken separately.
After the appeal was disposed of, the plaintiff filed the present application under Order XXXIX Rules 1 and 2 CPC seeking an interim injunction specifically against the wordmark “BOULT” and any deceptively similar mark. The plaintiff’s case was that omission of “BOULT” from the operative portion of the Jan 21, 2020 judgment of the Single Judge was only an inadvertent oversight, especially because the earlier findings had already recorded phonetic similarity between “BOAT” and “BOULT”.
The defendant opposed the application as a second injunction application seeking the same relief that had effectively not been granted earlier. It argued that the plaintiff had neither sought review, clarification, modification, nor filed any cross-appeal against the Jan 21, 2020 judgment, and had also earlier withdrawn an application for clarification in 2025 without liberty. According to the defendant, the present application was therefore barred as an abuse of process and by principles akin to issue estoppel.
