The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the condition imposed by the Kerala High Court order that restrained the makers of Kannada superhit film ‘Kantara’ from showing the ‘Varaharoopam’ song in the movie for the time being.
The orders were passed by the Bench of Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice P.S. Narasimha and Justice J.B. Pardiwala, which also issued notice on the plea filed by Producer of Kantara, Vijay Kirgandur and Director Rishab Shetty.
Though the petition was not listed today, the CJI agreed to take it up after an urgent mention was made before him.
While hearing the arguments, CJI Chandrachud expressed his displeasure over the condition imposed by the High Court.
The Bench observed that the High Court must have felt very strongly that the makers had plagiarised somebody’s song. However, such conditions cannot be imposed for granting anticipatory bail. A copyright suit cannot be decided in an anticipatory bail, it added.
The Apex Court directed the petitioners to appear before the investigating officer on February 12 and 13. It further ordered that the petitioners should be released on bail in case of arrest.
Representing the petitioners, Senior Advocate Ranjit Kumar contended that there were pending civil litigations regarding the alleged infringement of the copyright of song ‘Navarasam’ of Thaikkudam Bridge.
Earlier on February 9, the High Court of Kerala had granted anticipatory bail to the makers of Kantara, who were booked on plagiarism charges over the Varaharoopam song under the Copyright Act, 1956.
The Single-Judge Bench of Justice A. Badharudeen granted anticipatory bail to Kirgandur and Shetty on specific condition that they would not exhibit Kantara along with the music Varaharoopam in the film till an interim order or final order was passed by a competent civil court in the matter.
The High Court directed the petitioners to approach the competent civil court at the earliest over the allegations of copyright infringement.
A complaint was filed by rock band Thaikkudam Bridge and Mathrubhumi Printing and Publishing Co Ltd at Kozhikode Town Police Station, alleging that Varaharoopam was an unauthorised copy of Thaikkudam’s ‘Navarasam’ song, which was aired on Kappa TV, owned by Mathrubhumi.
On the basis of this complaint, an FIR was registered at Kozhikode Town Police Station under Section 63 of the Copyright Act. The makers of Kantara had refuted the charges, stating that the complainants have already filed two separate civil suits under the Copyright Act.
The District Courts of Kozhikode and Palakkad had termed the suits as non-maintainable and returned the plaints to be presented before a relevant Commercial Court, noted the petitioners, adding that the complainants had challenged the orders of the District Courts before the High Court, which were pending.
The petitioners argued that they had never exhibited the song Navarasam in Kantara as Varaharoopam in any form. They claimed that Varaharoopam was an independent creation and did not have any connection with Navarasam.