HC stays auction of website named after Arun Jaitley

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday stayed the auction of a website 'www.arunjaitley.com' on a petition from senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley, who contended that the domain name was identical to his name.

The Delhi High Court today stayed the auction of a website 'www.arunjaitley.com' on a petition from senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley, who contended that the domain name was identical to his name.

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A single member bench of Justice S Muralidhar restrained US-based Network Solutions Private Ltd from auctioning or transferring the domain name www.arunjaitley.com for further purpose.

The court also directed the IT firm to report for the compliance of its order before its Joint Registrar by November 11, 2009.

According to the petition filed by the BJP leader, he had approached Network Solutions to book portal in his domain name.

However, the company informed him the required domain www.arunjaitley.com was already taken by some one and was pending for deletion as the owner had not paid the required fee.

Later, the company asked the BJP leader to make an offer to purchase the domain name with an estimated value of 14,445 USD through its certified offer service.

"However, when the plaintiff visited the website of the defendant no 3 (Network Solutions), it was showing that the said domain was 'pending deletion' as it had not been renewed by the previous owner," said the BJP leader in his petition.

He then wrote a letter to Network Solutions and requested the IT firm to transfer the domain in his name as it was not renewed by any person and was pending for deletion.