Who invented butter chicken? Delhi restaurants clash over culinary crown

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) is getting interesting day by day as new concepts and elements are being added to the scope of protection. After bitter tussle on the sweet dish Rasgulla as to be the first and true inventor for Rasgolla, both Odisha and Bengal made their claims on it and finally the Geographical Indication Registry made it clear that both Bengal Rasgolla and Odisha rasgolla have their own uniqueness and both got a GI for their respective states and there after the matter got resolved. Similarly, there are multiple theories for who invented Biryani, but Hyderabad is known to have the legacy for making Biryani famous world over.

Interestingly, now the battle is for the inventorship for the famous dish of Butter Chicken as to who is the first and true inventor of the dish. This time, two famous restaurants, Moti Mahal and Daryagunj in New Delhi are at logger heads and the matter has gone to the Delhi High Court for a decision. The recipe of butter chicken was born out of frugality, using the left-over tikkas and mixing it with thick tomato gravy and dollops of butter to make the wonderful dish of Butter Chicken. The dish was first made in the kitchens of Peshawar before partition and then moved to Delhi with the restaurant owners moving to Delhi.

A lawsuit over the dish's origins has been filed in the Delhi High Court a few days back. The case involves two competing restaurants and families, each claiming themselves the inventors of the popular dish. The lawsuit - brought by the family of Kundan Lal Gujral, one the original restaurant's founders - claims that Gujral created the curry and has sued rival chain Daryaganj of falsely taking credit as the inventors of butter chicken and dal makhani. While Daryaganj Restaurant has claimed that Kundal Lal Jaggi was the first inventor of the dish and hence they have all the rights to use it in their marketing and branding and have not violated any trademark as alleged by Moti Mahal.

I believe the dispute isn't about whether which restaurant has invented the first butter chicken; but it’s all about which of its owners played a bigger role in its invention and made it popular. The battle of the inventorship on the butter chicken or any other dish in future might be inconsequential as customers will always eat dishes they like and don't really care who invented them decades ago.

As the matter will be decided by the court shortly, several ‘circumstantial evidence’ and testimonials of people who had the dish decades ago will be taken in to account but still it will be a tough call to say who is the first and true inventor of the dish.

Documentation would be the key in such matters and any handwritten recipe by any of the partners will help to settle the issue. We must wait and watch the decision of the court.

We need to see whether restaurants in future will file for IPRs for their dishes and claim rights to prevent others from using the recipe and name of the dishes to get a monopoly? A novel and innovative process for making a dish or food can be patented but you cannot get a right on the name of the dish. Also, enforcing rights on any dish invented will be a challenge as dishes will go beyond one restaurant and will be found everywhere. The first inventor will only get credit for inventing it, but what truly will drive the business is the legacy and quality of the dish and the brand which one creates over the years. To conclude, the inventorship of the dish would make no difference to the businesses of both the family restaurants as people will always go for quality and service over ownership and legacy of the dishes. Whatever be the decision, Moti Mahal and Daryaganj will continue to do good. Personally, I feel Daryaganj could have made it interesting by using a slogan, ‘think butter chicken think Daryaganj’ instead of using the tag line inventors of butter chicken and dal makhani and entering a tussle with Moti Mahal.

(The writer is Head- Legal & IPR, Resolute Group of Companies)