India’s Butter Chicken Battle Heats up With New Court Evidence 

A freshly prepared butter chicken dish is placed on a table inside the Moti Mahal Delux restaurant in New Delhi, India, January 23, 2024. (Reuters) 
A freshly prepared butter chicken dish is placed on a table inside the Moti Mahal Delux restaurant in New Delhi, India, January 23, 2024. (Reuters) 
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India’s Butter Chicken Battle Heats up With New Court Evidence 

A freshly prepared butter chicken dish is placed on a table inside the Moti Mahal Delux restaurant in New Delhi, India, January 23, 2024. (Reuters) 
A freshly prepared butter chicken dish is placed on a table inside the Moti Mahal Delux restaurant in New Delhi, India, January 23, 2024. (Reuters) 

With new photographic and video evidence, an Indian court battle over the origins of the world famous butter chicken is set to get spicier.

Two Indian restaurant chains have been sparring since January at the Delhi High Court, both claiming credit for inventing the dish in a lawsuit that has grabbed the attention of social media users, food critics, editorials and TV channels across the globe.

The popular Moti Mahal restaurant chain said it had the sole right to be recognized as the inventor of the curry and demanded its rival, the Daryaganj chain, to stop claiming credit and pay $240,000 in damages. Moti Mahal said founder Kundan Lal Gujral created the cream-loaded dish in the 1930s at an eatery in Peshawar, now in Pakistan, before relocating to Delhi.

That "story of invention of butter chicken does not ring true" and is aimed at misleading the court, Daryaganj said in a new, 642-page counter-filing reviewed by Reuters.

Daryaganj says a late member of its founding family, Kundan Lal Jaggi, created the disputed dish when he helmed the kitchen at the relocated Delhi eatery, where Gujral, his friend-cum-partner from Peshawar only handled marketing.

Both men are dead, Gujral in 1997 and Jaggi in 2018.

Evidence in the non-public filing includes a black-and-white photograph from 1930s showing the two friends in Peshawar; a 1949 partnership agreement; Jaggi's business card after relocating to Delhi and his 2017 video talking about the dish's origin.

By virtue of the friends' partnership, "both parties can claim that their respective ancestors created the dishes," Daryaganj says in the filing, calling the dispute a "business rivalry".

Moti Mahal declined to comment. The judge will next hear the case on May 29.

A key point of contention, which the court will have to rule on, is where, when and by whom the dish was first made - by Gujral in Peshawar, Jaggi in New Delhi, or if both should be credited.

Butter chicken is ranked 43rd in a list of world's "best dishes" by TasteAtlas, and bragging rights about who invented it can matter, brand experts said.

"Being an inventor has a huge advantage globally and in terms of consumer appeal. You are also entitled to charge more," said Dilip Cherian, an image guru and co-founder of Indian PR firm Perfect Relations.

Moti Mahal operates a franchisee model with over 100 outlets globally. Its butter chicken dishes start at $8 in New Delhi, and are priced at $23 in New York.

Late US President Richard Nixon and India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru are among the famous clients to have visited its primary outlet in Delhi.

Daryaganj started in 2019 and its butter chicken costs $7.50. It has 10 outlets, mostly in New Delhi, with plans to expand to other Indian cities and Bangkok.

In its 2,752-page Indian lawsuit, Moti Mahal had also accused Daryaganj of copying "the look and feel" of the interiors of its outlets.

Daryaganj has retorted with photographs of restaurant interiors which the judge will review, claiming it is Moti Mahal that has copied its "design of floor tiles".



Japan’s Sado Mines Added to World Heritage List

This photo taken on May 9, 2022 shows a mine on Sado island. (AFP)
This photo taken on May 9, 2022 shows a mine on Sado island. (AFP)
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Japan’s Sado Mines Added to World Heritage List

This photo taken on May 9, 2022 shows a mine on Sado island. (AFP)
This photo taken on May 9, 2022 shows a mine on Sado island. (AFP)

A network of mines on a Japanese island infamous for using conscripted wartime labor was added to UNESCO's World Heritage register Saturday after South Korea dropped earlier objections to its listing.

The Sado gold and silver mines, now a popular tourist attraction, are believed to have started operating as early as the 12th century and produced until after World War II.

Japan had put a case for World Heritage listing because of their lengthy history and the artisanal mining techniques used there at a time when European mines had turned to mechanization.

The proposal was opposed by Seoul when it was first put because of the use of involuntary Korean labor during World War II, when Japan occupied the Korean peninsula.

UNESCO confirmed the listing of the mines at its ongoing committee meeting in New Delhi on Saturday after a bid highlighting its archaeological preservation of "mining activities and social and labor organization".

"I would like to wholeheartedly welcome the inscription... and pay sincere tribute to the long-standing efforts of the local people which made this possible," Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa said in a statement.

The World Heritage effort was years in the making, inspired in part by the successful recognition of a silver mine in western Japan's Shimane region.

South Korea's foreign ministry said it had agreed to the listing "on the condition that Japan faithfully implements the recommendation... to reflect the 'full history' at the Sado Gold Mine site and takes proactive measures to that end."

Historians have argued that recruitment conditions at the mine effectively amounted to forced labor, and that Korean workers faced significantly harsher conditions than their Japanese counterparts.

"Discrimination did exist," Toyomi Asano, a professor of history of Japanese politics at Tokyo's Waseda University, told AFP in 2022.

"Their working conditions were very bad and dangerous. The most dangerous jobs were allocated to them."

Also added to the list on Saturday was the Beijing Central Axis, a collection of former imperial palaces and gardens in the Chinese capital.

The UNESCO committee meeting runs until Wednesday.