Seven years after an application was made to get the ‘Geographical
Indication’ tag for Indian basmati rice grown in certain States, the
Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) on Friday February 05,2016 cleared the decks
for issuing the tag.
The application has been mired in litigation after farmers and exporters
and Madhya Pradesh wanted to be included in the list of States approved
by the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development
Authority (APEDA), the statutory body responsible for export promotion
and development of certain scheduled products.
Following the orders issued on Friday by Justice K.N. Basha, Chairman,
IPAB, and Sanjeev Kumar Chaswal, technical member, Trademark, IPAB,
basmati rice cultivated in the Indo-Gangetic Plains on the foothills of
the Himalayas covering areas of the rice grown in Punjab, Haryana,
Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Western U.P. and two districts of
Jammu and Kathua, will now be issued the GI tag.
Passing the orders, Justice Basha ordered the assistant registrar of GI
Registry, Chennai, to proceed with the registration and issue the GI
certification within four weeks of getting a copy of the order.
Justice Basha also ordered the assistant registrar to reconsider the
issue of addition of areas of basmati cultivation in states such as
Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Rajasthan.
The assistant registrar has now been asked to ’reconsider the matter
afresh' and listen to arguments of both parties — APEDA and the
respondents — and pass an order within the next six months.
In 2014-15, India exported 37 lakh MT of Basmati Rice to the world worth
Rs. 27,597.87 crore and is the world’s leading exporter of the rice,
according to APEDA. India exports a major quantity of basmati rice to
Saudi Arabia, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Kuwait.
Justice Basha also dismissed a petition filed by Lahore-based Basmati
Growers Association that challenged the issuance of GI tag to Indian
Basmati rice.
“The appellant miserably failed to comply with the mandatory
requirements of filing the evidence in support of opposition within the
time frame stipulated under Rule 44 (1) of G.I. Rules, 2002, the
opposition shall be deemed to have been abandoned by the appellant,” he
said.
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