'Passing off' is a common tactics to use a similar trade mark. Does the Trade Marks Act, 1999 govern an act of 'passing off'? If yes, why and if no, why not ?

As per Section 11 (3) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999, a trade mark shall not be registered if, or to the extend that, its use in India is liable to be prevented— (a) by virtue of any law in particular the law of passing off protecting an unregistered trade mark used in the course of trade: or (b) by virtue of law of copyright. Section 134 of the Trade Marks Act, 1999 provides that no suit for passing off arising out of the use by the defendant of any trade mark which is identical with or deceptively similar to the plaintiff's trade mark, whether registered or unregistered shall be instituted in any court inferior to a District Court having jurisdiction to try the suit. Further Section 135 states that the relief which a court may grant in any suit for infringement or for passing off referred to in section 134 includes injunction (subject to such terms, if any, as the court thinks fit) and at the option of the plaintiff, either damages or an account of profits, together with or without any order for the delivery up of the infringing labels and marks for destruction or erasure. With the above provisions, it can be clearly understood that the action of passing off has been taken care in the provisions of Trade Marks Act, 1999. Since, there is very minute difference between passing off and infringement and in the common parlance the passing off and infringement is supposed to one and the same thing. Therefore, the Act has to take care the provisions of passing of. The difference between action in passing and action in infringement had been clearly explained by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Kaviraj Pandit Durga Dull Sharma v. Navratna Pharmaceutical Laboratories, AIR 1965 SC 980.