GI- India- Need introspection

The GI Act promulgated in the 1999 and implemented from15th September 2002 with a sole office at Chennai on papers seems to be highly effective. It has entertained around 150 GI applications and more than 90 has been registered till date.

However the ground reality is different. The volume of applications is due to various awareness workshops, seminars across country organized by the international and national development agencies.

The GI is of larger public significance can be seen from the fact that this is the only Indian law for protecting collective rights of public at large relating to Agriculture, Natural and Manmade products.

The Controller General of Patents and Trade Mark is the Registrar of GI as per Section 3 of the GI Act 1999. Whereas the Controller General has office at Mumbai and is continuously operating from there only. The importance attached to GI work can be seen from the fact that the same has been delegated and assigned to a junior functionary of the rank of Assistant Registrar, though not legally permissible as discussed in my earlier blog.

Even the disclosures made by the office of Controller General under RTI shows that he has no role to play under GI Act. They have coined Procedure Manual for Trade Marks, Patents etc. but not for GI Registry. There is no prescribed procedure for GI Registry as to how it will scrutinized applications, process it, timeframe and responsibilities and time frame corresponding to the applicant. The staff strength is only 5 consisting of peons as well. There is no working procedure.

The GI Act mandates the filing of application by the persons or group of persons associated with the concerned product, but none of the application has been scrutinized in light thereof and Government and its agencies are filing applications own there own having no concern with the concerned product. The data speaks that the GI granted to Government agencies have not at all made any headway. Having only one office at Chennai is deprivation of opportunity and limit there accessibility to the applicants, which is already discussed in my earlier blogs.

Apparently there is no priority and importance attached to the GI Registry. In light thereof we need to have introspection and corrective measures.