Delhi High Court orders Central government to block websites impersonating Cresset Capital

The Delhi High Court recently ordered the Central government and domain name registrars (DNRs) to block and suspend various fraudulent websites impersonating US based investment advisory and asset management services firms Cresset Capital Management and Cresset Administrative Services Corporation..In an order passed on September 1, Justice Prathiba M Singh also directed the Delhi Police’s cyber cell to investigate the websites as they were collecting money from consumers.The cyber cell will enquire about the bank accounts which the proprietors of the websites may have opened and issue freezing orders, the Court said."The Domain Name Registrars shall immediately lock and suspend the said domain names, thereby bringing down the websites. The Domain Name Registrars shall also disclose the details of the persons who have registered these domain names including any KYC details, credit card information, etc., which may be available if the said Defendants have availed of cloud services or any other services from the said DNRs,” the Court ordered..The order was passed on a plea by Cresset (plaintiff) which stated that one Karthikeyan Ganesan had registered various domain names with the mark Cresset and the plaintiff was now receiving complaints from consumers that they have started investing money in these websites.The websites had replicated the content of the Cresset and therefore, the users were unable to decipher that these were fraudulent..Justice Singh examined the websites and observed that they were brazenly using the Cresset name and logo only with the intent to impersonate and collect money from gullible consumers.“After perusing the record it is clear that the mark ‘Cresset’ as also the accompanying logo is being misused by unscrupulous persons to create fraudulent websites and to illegally and unlawfully collect monies portraying themselves to be the Plaintiffs,” the Court said.It added,“All the domain name registrations which are on record show that they are privacy protected and, thus, the whereabouts or the identities of the persons who have registered the domain names is unknown except to the Registrars of the domain name. The said domain names deserve to be taken down immediately in order to ensure that further duping of innocent persons is curtailed. A detailed investigation also deserves to be directed in the present case through the Cyber cell, Delhi Police for effective action against the persons behind such websites.”The Court, therefore, ordered blocking of the websites and police investigation into the alleged crime..Senior Advocate Saurabh Kirpal with advocates Anuj Berry, Sourabh Rath, Vibhore Yadav and Gauri Pasricha appeared for Cresset.Central Government Standing Counsel Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar with advocates Gokul Sharma, Srish Kumar Mishra, Sagar Mehlawat, Alexander Mathai Paikaday, Krishnan V and M Sriram represented the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) Department of Technology (DoT). .[Read Order]