A US-based private company was on Monday asked by the Delhi High Court to pay a fine of Rs five lakh to senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley for harassing him by running a website www.arunjaitley.com and refusing to transfer the domain name to him.

"The defendant company (Portfolio Brains LLC) and its agents or entities operating at the same address or persons connected there to with the defendant (company), its entities and assignee are liable to pay the punitive damages to the tune of Rs 5 lakh to plaintiff (Jaitley) for causing hardship and harassment and mental torture to him in getting back the domain name," Justice Manmohan Singh said in a judgement.

The court restrained the Los Angeles-based company Portfolio Brains LLC from "using, promoting, advertising or retaining or parting with the domain arunjaitley.com".

It asked the firm to transfer the domain name immediately to the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha. The court slammed the Domain Registrar for not following the ICANN policy in granting and transferring the domain name misusing the name of a big personality.

"The names of the popular personalities like Arun Jaitley is being registered by a foreigner who have no concern for the domain name in question. There should be sufficient preliminary inquiry before registering the domain name as to whether the domain in question is the personal name of the applicant of his near relative by disclosing an identity of a person," the court said.

The court allowed the plea of Jaitley's lawyer Pratibha Maninder Singh that the firm was intending to trade with the domain name by putting the same on website and asking the leader to pay a huge sum of money, which established that the firm was indulged in "cyber squatting".

"The Portfolio Brains LLC, M/s Oversee.net are permanently restrained from using, promoting advertisement or retaining or parting with the said domain name ....and further restrained from adopting, using the mark, name in any of the extensions of the domain name in cyberspace wherein the name Arun Jaitley forms one of the features," the court said.

Initially, the BJP leader had filed the case against the Network Solutions as it was running the portal.

The Network Solutions, despite the court order restraining the transfer or auction of the portal, had transferred the website to the Portfolio Brains LLC in 2009, which has now been fined and asked to give up the domain name in favour of Jaitley.

Jaitley had contended the domain name was identical to his name and no third party has any business to misuse it.