When Stature Becomes Substance: Judicial Deference and Moral Rights in the Ilaiyaraaja Injunction

The bigger the stardom, the likelier an injunction. Discussing the role of stardom, fame, and eminence in moral rights jurisprudence and adjudication, Arshiya Gupta argues that fame and stature are good indicators of how seriously Courts treat your moral right claims, thus implicitly creating a hierarchy of claims. Arshiya is a third-year law student at National Law University, Delhi, with a keen inclination towards PIL, IPR, and criminal law.

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When Stature Becomes Substance: Judicial Deference and Moral Rights in the Ilaiyaraaja Injunction

By Arshiya Gupta

On 28th November, 2025, in Dr. Ilaiyaraaja v. Mythri Movie Makers (pdf), the Madras High Court granted an interim injunction in favor of one of India’s most iconic composers, restraining the makers of the film Dude from using the modified versions of two of Ilaiyaraaja’s songs, “Noory Varusham” and “Karutha Machan”. This was passed after Ilaiyaraaja successfully argued that this modification was detrimental to the integrity and purity of his original work and caused damage to his reputation. Although the parties have since settled, allowing continued usage of these songs for 50 Lakh Rupees, the settlement doesn’t diminish the broader questions about the scope of moral rights, the treatment of derivative work, and the judiciary’s approach to creative autonomy.

At one level, the 28^th November order affirms that Section 57 of the Copyright Act, 1957 grants every author a non-waivable right to protect the integrity of their work against distortions that harm their honor or reputation. However, at a deeper level, Ilaiyaraaja exposes a profound question in Indian copyright jurisprudence, namely, the extent to which an author’s stature shapes the court’s assessment of reputational harm and its willingness to robustly enforce moral rights. Yet before this question can be meaningfully examined, it becomes necessary to first understand how courts have drawn the boundary between modification as a legitimate creative choice, and mutilation as a violation prejudicial to the author’s “honor or reputation”.

Distortion vs. Adaptation: Where Does Creative Freedom End? 

Section 57(1)(b) grants the author the right to restrain or claim damages for “any distortion, mutilation, modification or other act in relation to the said work if such distortion, mutilation, modification or other act would be prejudicial to his honor or reputation.” Thus, alteration alone is not sufficient; there must be reputational harm, in line with Article 6bis of the Berne Convention. Courts have clarified that “mutilation” means rendering the work imperfect by destruction of parts, while “distortion” is twisting or perverting the work to give it a different sense. “Other modification” must be read ejusdem generis (“of the same kind or nature”) with these terms, crossing the line only when the change is so serious that the altered work appears quite different from the original, resulting in a “perversion of the original”.

Judicial application of this principle is earliest seen in Mannu Bhandari v. Kala Vikas Pictures Ltd., (Delhi High Court, 1986) where vulgar dialogues and a crude, altered ending were held impermissible, having completely mutilated or distorted the original theme and characters. They were held as having crossed the line from necessary changes into actionable harm to the author’s specialized reputation as a committed writer. Then, Amarnath Sehgal v. Union of India (Delhi High Court, 2005) interpreted “mutilation” in its widest sense to include the destruction of a work of art, deeming it prejudicial to the author’s reputation because it reduced the volume of his creative corpus. 

In Puneet Prakash Mehra v. Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment Ltd. (Calcutta High Court, 2010), the Court insisted on specific proof of prejudice to honour or reputation, making clear that mere dissatisfaction with an adaptation is not enough. It accepted, implicitly, that the recreated song did not amount to “distortion” or “mutilation,” especially since the Act itself contemplates rearrangement and alteration. In Rajiv Menon v. Dr. M.P. Somaprasad (Karnataka High Court, 2025), the Court asked whether an ordinary viewer, after seeing both works, would get the “unmistakable impression” that the later work copied the original. Applied to moral rights, the test turns on whether the alteration harms the author’s standing by leading the public to believe the author approved a degraded or vulgarised version. 

These principles highlight the need for concrete evidence of reputational harm and a serious alteration of the original work. Viewed against this backdrop, Ilaiyaraaja’s case stands out: the court did not apply the detailed scrutiny seen in earlier cases, and the finding of distortion rested largely on Ilaiyaraaja’s stature rather than a demonstrated perversion of the songs (this will be explored in detail below). 

Judiciary’s Considerations of Eminence 

A persistent problem in the jurisprudence (which can be seen in the Ilaiyaraaja case as well) on Section 57 is the manner in which court’s assess “prejudice to honour or reputation”. Although the statutory test is the same for every author, in practice the granting of this protection may end up relying on the author’s stature, wherein celebrated creators easily receive expansive protection, while lessor known authors struggle to show actionable harm.

This is evident in the Amar Nath Sehgal case, where the Court relied heavily on the Petitioner’s international reputation, even emphasizing his creative corpus and recognising subjective distress as reputational harm. In contrast, in Raj Rewal (Delhi High Court, 2019), the Court suggested that moral rights in functional works are protected only when the work has achieved a level of recognized stature. At other times too, as in Mannu Bhandari, the court relied heavily on the author’s reputation that had earned a “great reputation” and “special status” in the Indian Literary world, and found that, the apprehension that her admirers would conclude she consented to “cheap screenplay writers” and “vulgar dialogues” was a “real one”. Together, these contrasting outcomes signal that where the author or the work lacks established prestige, claims of prejudice to honor or reputation are far less likely to override competing interests. 

Courts however, should not act as super-censors but must evaluate whether the modification genuinely causes prejudice. As clarified in Raj Rewal, reputation means the standing the author has built and ‘honor’ protects their personal integrity against derogatory treatment of their work. While these decisions illustrate only one strand of moral-rights litigation, they also reveal that reputation remains a decisive, if unstated, factor. In Mannu Bhandari, a lesser-known author might not have overcome the argument that the changes were routine adaptations for commercial success, but for Bhandari those very changes became stains on her artistic sincerity. Although Section 57 does not explicitly adopt the “recognized stature” requirement found in the US Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA), the case laws show that eminence often gives moral rights claims a distinct and sometimes decisive advantage. 

This dynamic is precisely what plays out in the Ilaiyaraaja injunction, where the court’s willingness to view the modified songs as harmful can be seen as inseparable from the composer’s towering reputation. 

Judging Judicial Prejudice in Ilaiyaraaja’s Case 

In Dr. Ilaiyaraaja v. Mythri Movie Makers, the petitioner was deemed to have established a prima facie case under Section 57(1)(b) largely by demonstrating his authorship, presenting evidence of his status as the composer, and asserting that his moral rights exist independently of copyright or contractual assignment. The core requirement of demonstrating prejudice to reputation, however, rested primarily on his statute as a celebrated artist, wherein, his counsel emphasized his reputation as “Isaignani” and “Maestro”, a recipient of Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan, with over 7,500 songs composed. 

The evidence of distortion consisted merely of contrasting the original songs with the movie versions, noting differences in quality and nature, and not “distortion” or “mutilation” in the sense elaborated above. Given Ilaiyaraaja’s high-stature and distinctive style known for specific orchestration, arrangement, and balancing of tracks, the Court inferred that any alteration automatically compromised the integrity and purity of his work, even without an actual finding on how his artistic integrity was affected. This becomes all the more striking considering that, despite the apparent compromise of his artistic integrity, the case was ultimately settled and the songs were allowed to be released in Dude in exchange for monetary compensation. 

The Court in this case appeared to consider factors beyond the strict requirements of Section 57. In particular, it relied on Agi Music Sdn Bhd v. Ilaiyaraaja (Madras High Court, 2019), which reflects the judiciary’s conscious intent to protect creators of exceptional stature. In that case, the court emphasized the unfortunate reality that many of India’s finest artists remain vulnerable in old age while corporate interests exploit their work, stating that urgent remedies were required. 

This judicial empathy, coupled with Ilaiyaraaja’s celebrated stature, appears to have influenced the Court’s willingness to stretch Section 57 beyond its strict contours, resulting in a readiness to grant the interim injunction and preserve his moral rights.