Justice A P Shah in a brief order last week, gave the board of the company, Jayems Engineering Co Pvt Ltd, that owns the trademark, `Ensemble' the liberty to ``consider the request of Tarun Tahiliani and (his sister) Gayatri Parikh, for the use of the trademark at the new Piramal Mall''. But, the resolution would not be implemented till further orders, the court directed.

The four-line order was in a review petition in the arbitration petition filed by the aunts of Tarun Tahiliani against his father, Admiral Radhakrishin Tahiliani, against an earlier arbitration award of 1998.

The recent order came in the wake of a notice issued by the company, on September 11, 1999, calling for a board meetingto consider the request of the Tahiliani siblings. The petitioners, Pushpa Mulchandani, one of the aunts of Tarun Tahiliani, who had filed the review petition argued that the notice was only another way of circumventing the very challenge presented in the earlier arbitration award of 1998.

The facts of the case date back to 1969 when the maternal grandfather of Tarun Tahiliani, Khimatrai S Khushalani set up a partnership firm, the Jayems Engineering Co. Khushalani who had seven daughters, died leaving a will in 1969 that a trust would be set up to distribute the profits of the firm on an equal share between his 20 grandchildren till the last grandchild attains the age of 18. After this, the firm was to be liquidated and the assets divided equally among his surviving daughters. At present, three grandchildren are still minors and the last grandchild will be becoming a major in around 2004.

Admiral Tahiliani, eventually became the sole trustee. According to the petitioners, no accounts were tendered by himand none of the grandchildren received any money. Disputes arose between the legatees and the beneficiaries on the assets of Jayems Engineering Co Pvt Ltd and the assets of the partnership firm left behind by the deceased, as well as his will. The petitioners charged that all the other divisions of the engineering company had been abandoned till the ``Ensemble division'' was the only surviving business division.

Following these disputes, the company went in for arbitration under J C Bhatia, chairman of the Jayems Engineering Co Pvt Ltd. The arbitration award forwarded in 1998 allegedly favoured the children of Tahiliani, to the deprivation of the rest of the beneficiaries and legatees.

This was the cause for challenging the arbitration petition, where the petitioners argued that the arbitrator was not impartial.

However, when the notice of September 11 came, the petitioners went to court again arguing that if the ``Ensemble'' trademark were to be given to the duo, it would amount to sale of thetrademark by the company. However, counsels for Tahiliani had argued that the request for the use of the trademark in Piramal Mall did not amount to selling off the company's business. It was argued that the trademark was the creation of Tarun Tahiliani and Gayatri Parikh and that Tarun Tahiliani had already been granted a license to use the trademark in Delhi in 1997. Allowing the use of the same trademark in the new business at Piramal Mall, would only be profitable to the company.

The matter is now listed for hearing on September 23.