Complainant says name used since 1995; case filed in 2014 after man from Delhi obtained franchisee rights to open restaurant under the name ‘Lucknow Wale Tunday Kababi’

The Delhi High Court has ruled that the ‘Tunday Kababi’ name belongs exclusively to Mohammad Usman, the grandson of Haji Murad Ali ‘Tunday’ in Lucknow.

The court was hearing a case between M.U. Eating Point, owned by Mr. Usman, and a competing food chain, ‘Lucknow Wale Tunday Kababi’.

The latter is owned by Mohammad Muslim, who claims to be the maternal grandson of Mr. Ali.

For more than a century, Lucknow’s iconic Tunday Kababi shop has been serving food connoisseurs its signature dish, Galouti Kebab, made from buffalo meat. But in recent years, many eateries have mushroomed that use the word Tunday, making it difficult to identify the original.

Claims to lineage

Mr. Usman filed a case in the Delhi High Court in 2014 after coming to know that Mr. Muslim had given franchisee rights to a person in Delhi to open a restaurant under the name ‘Lucknow Wale Tunday Kababi’.

The debate over the ownership of the name ‘Tunday Kababi’ quickly turned into that of who had claims to the lineage of late Mr. Ali, the legendary one armed chef.

In 1905, Mr. Ali started his kabab-parantha shop on Gol Darwaza Street, in the middle of old Lucknow’s busiest marketplace, the Chowk area.

Since he had only one arm, he was referred to as ‘Tunday’, which translates to “without an arm” in Urdu.

Mr. Ali was also offered the royal patronage of the Nawab of Lucknow after he won a contest for making the most delicious kababs. His eatery then came to be known as ‘Tunday Kababi’ or ‘Tunday ke Kabab’ in Lucknow and the recipe of its signature dish is a well-guarded secret.

Mr. Usman claimed he has been using the trademark ‘Tunday Kababi’ and its logo since 1995 when his father Haji Rais Ahmad started another outlet in Aminabad, Lucknow.

Mr. Muslim, however, told the High Court that he is the maternal grandson of Mr. Ali and was therefore the direct legal heir to the family business.

Mr. Muslim claimed that since Mr. Ali was without any children, he adopted the daughter of his brother. She had married Mohd. Hanif and Mr. Muslim was born out of wedlock.

Justice Jayant Nath, in his judgment pronounced last month, said that Mr. Muslim has filed no evidence to support his contention as being legal heir of Mr. Ali.

‘Nothing on record’

“There is also nothing on record to support his (Mr. Muslim) contention that he has any right in the trademark ‘Tunday Kababi’ or logo ‘Tunday Kababi’,” the High Court said.

“The mark ‘Lucknow Wale Tunday Kababi’ used by the defendants is structurally, visually and phonetically identical to the registered trade mark of the Plaintiffs (M.U. Eating Point),” the judge said adding, “There is a clear violation of the statutory as well as common law rights of the Plaintiffs”.

“…the Plaintiffs have established that they are the registered owner of the said trademark…Thus they have a statutory right to the exclusive use of the same,” the High Court said.

Advocate Ashutosh Kumar, representing M.U. Eating Point, said, “Mr. Usman has an exclusive right to use this name and it would be illegal for anyone else to use the name ‘Tunday Kababi’ without authorisation”.