In yet another drive against fake consumables, HP conducted raids in two
shops in the Ritchie Street market yesterday. This time, Ramdev Infotech and
Royal Computer Consumables were searched for fake and coun-terfeit products. The
authori-ties have seized some mate-rial from Ramdev, while just a search was
made at Royal and no stock was picked up from there.
However, no reseller was arrested and remanded as police demanded with HP
appointed agency–Enforcers of Intellectual Property Rights (EIPR))–to prove
the produ-cts were fake at the police station itself. This action of police has
given a new hope to resellers who were crying that they were unnecessarily
targeted and harassed by the vendors in the name of raids.
Presently, the case is pen-ding before the Police Commi-ssioner’s Office,
Egmore and the agency has been given time to prove that the produ-cts are fake
and counterfeit. Seized goods (cartridges) worth over Rs 60,000 of Ramdev
Infotech are lying in the police custody.
"We are happy that police had stressed the right point by asking HP’s
agency to prove that the products are fake at the police station itself for the
arrest and remand of resellers. Otherwise, vendors just seize materials and file
a complaint against us without proving we are guilty," said a leading
consumables reseller in the market.
"HP is just trying to instill fear in the minds of resellers. It tries
to play with its money and muscle power against the resellers. However, they do
not know the strength of the channel community and soon, we will teach them the
right lesson," said another fuming reseller who also faced such kind of
raids in the past.
"We understand HP’s con-cern to control fake products but they should
target the right section and they should also have the mechanism to prove it at
the place of seizure itself. However, this time, the police came to the rescue
of the resellers and we are happy about it," said a leading peripheral
dealer.
The resellers’ association–ITTA–has condemned this act of HP saying
frequent raids will affect the market senti-ments and business. "We will
provide all support to the vendors if they are correct. But, if they try to
demean us, we would not tolerate it. Parallel import products are legal and
genuine, and HP cannot term it as fake and arrest us. We can sell impor-ted
products coming through proper channel," stressed a top office-bearer of
ITTA.
Edward Rodrick, Director (Operations), EIPR, declined to comment anything on
this raid saying he is not autho-rized to speak to the media. This newspaper
also tried to reach the city crime branch police for their comment, but none was
available till the story went to the press.
S Gopikrishna
Chennai