Ranjan Jha, an advocate practicing before the Delhi High Court, has alerted us to this decision of the Division Bench of the Delhi High Court pronounced yesterday and available over here. We had briefly mentioned this petition earlier, which has been filed by the Federation of Hotels & Restaurants Association of India challenging certain key provisions of the Copyright Act, 1957, as also the tariff schemes and licensing rates that were being charged by PPL & IPRS. The petition also sought cancellation of registration of both these companies as Copyright Societies. Image from here.The provisions of the Copyright Act, 1957 which were challenged before the Delhi HC are as follows: (i)Section 2(ff): definition of ‘communication to the public’; (ii)Section 13: Works in which copyright subsists; (iii)Section 33(3): Power of the Central Government to register Copyright Societies; (iv)Section 34(3): The power of copyright societies to issue licences and collect fees.
All of the above provisions were challenged on the grounds that they were allegedly violative of Article 14 (‘Right to Equality & Equal Protection’) and Article 19(1)(g) ‘(Right to trade, carry on business’) as they do not lay down any guidelines to regulate copyright societies. The petitioners also sought to argue that they should not be made to pay separately for both the ‘sound recording’ and the ‘underlying works’ as the ‘rights of authors, lyricists and composers etc. are extinguished or become fused with the rights of the owners of the sound recording’.
The Judgement of the High Court: All the prayers against the Copyright Societies themselves i.e. PPL & IPRS were dismissed as not maintainable because although IPRS and PPL are recognized by the Copyright Act they are not statutory bodies carrying out a public function. Instead they are administering rights on behalf of individuals/owners. A writ petition can be filed only against a body falling within the Article 12 definition of ‘State’ and according to the Delhi HC, ‘Copyright Societies’ do not fall within this definition of ‘state’. This is a landmark victory for PPL and IPRS because other High Courts have been routinely issuing writs against these Copyright Societies even though they never really fulfilled the criteria of ‘State’ in Article 12.
The Delhi HC then pointed the petitioners to the Copyright Board and the Registrar of Copyrights as the competent authorities who are authorized by the Act to regulate the Copyright Societies. Since an alternative remedy was available, the Delhi HC declined to exercise its extraordinary powers under Article 226 of the Constitution.
The main challenge against the provisions of the Copyright Act, outlined above, were dismissed in a pithy 4 pages wherein the High Court stopped short of deeming the entire challenge as ridiculous. The petitioners had tried challenging the provisions as unreasonable, arbitrary and suffering from excessive delegation. The Delhi HC completely disagreed with these arguments and rightly so, in my opinion.
In regards the supposedly exorbitant tariff rates which were impeding the Article 19(1)(g) of the Petitioner, the Court stated that “In a laissez faire economy, such as what exists in India today, every person is entitled to claim any price for utilization of rights or services. We are not dealing with essential commodities. If the Government is of the opinion that the public at large is being exploited, appropriate legislation shall, no doubt, be passed.”
A reasonable judgment given the unreasonable and unrealistic prayers sought by the petitioners.
