The High Court of Karnataka on Friday reserved its orders on a petition that sought quashing of an FIR against Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Jairam Ramesh and Supriya Shrinate over charges of unauthorised use of KGF Chapter 2 music during Bharat Jodo Yatra under the Copyright Act.
The Single-Judge Bench of Justice M. Nagaprasanna reserved the order after hearing both sides.
The interim order of stay, which was passed during the previous hearing, would continue till the pronouncement of order.
Representing the petitioners, Senior Advocate Vikram Huilgol argued that Section 63 of the Copyright Act had a heightened threshold of infringement. He said the question of infringement at large itself was before the civil court and that they had preferred a suit under Section 55.
He pointed out that the onus to show that a person knowingly infringed on a copyright laid on Section 63 of the Act, but there was no mention of that particular Section in the complaint.
Noting that Rahul Gandhi admittedly walked or was portrayed to be walking with the music in the background, the lawyer asked whether being portrayed in a video would amount to Gandhi knowingly infringing a copyright.
Representing complainant M. Naveen Kumar, Senior Advocate S. Sriranga and Advocate Pranav Kumar Mysore alleged that the petitioners-accused had taken the source code, meddled with it and superimposed the video.
He said the Act provided for civil remedy and criminal prosecution, noting that in case of such infringement, the outcome of one did not depend on the outcome of the other, subject to all just exceptions.