Nigerian court jails three Indians for contempt
A Nigerian court has sentenced three Indians of a Lagos-based company to one-month imprisonment each for disobeying its orders.
The Indians, who are brothers, include the Managing Director of a private plastic company called Sacvin Nigeria Limited, Chandru Ganglani, and two other directors, Bharat Ganglani and Trishul Ganglani.
Justice John Tsoho of the Federal High Court in Lagos, the country's economic capital, on Monday said that they disobeyed an interim order it made on July, 9, 2009 which restrained their company from engaging in the trade or business of manufacturing and selling or distributing the plastic products which infringed the trademark of Rike Industries Limited.
Rike Industries had filed the substantive matter before the court alleging the infringement against Sacvin Nigeria Ltd.
The counsel for Rike Industries limited Femi Pinhero said that in June 2009, it discovered the defendant company was selling plastic products which are identical in design to its products.
The court then gave an order restraining Sacvin from engaging in any such trade or business which infringed the trademark of the plaintiff's product.
The directors of the defendant company however allegedly disobeyed court the order and engaged in such activities.
Justice Tsoho said that any act committed by the company is attributable to its directors who are the alter ego of the company.
The judge therefore sentenced the three Indians to a month imprisonment without options of fine to purge them of the contempt and later adjourned the substantive suit till April 20, 2012.
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