Red Chillies Entertainments Pvt Ltd V/S Ashok Kumar / John Doe & Ors. [Cs(Comm) 240/2023]
The Delhi High Court ordered the deactivation of channels and groups selling unauthorized versions of the Jawan movie on WhatsApp and Telegram.
The single judge bench of Justice C.Hari Shankar had restrained the defendants, and all others acting on their behalf from copying, recording, reproducing, allowing recording, transmitting, communicating or making available for distribution, duplication, display or release, exhibiting or playing in any manner, any stills, audio/video clips, songs, recordings or other proprietary information relating to the cinematographic film “Jawan” or any part thereof without a proper licence from the plaintiff.
The application has been moved because the plaintiff claimed to have come to learn that one Mr. Rohit Sharma is indulging in the aforesaid activities. As the defendants were hitherto unknown, they were represented by an ominous moniker Ashok Kumar / John Doe, as Defendant 1. Now that Mr. Rohit Sharma has been identified as an alleged infringer, the plaintiff has moved the interim application under Order I Rule 10 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (CPC) to implead Mr. Rohit Sharma and Meta Platforms, which operates WhatsApp, over which Mr. Rohit Sharma is stated to be circulating, without authorisation, copyrighted content relating to the film “Jawan”.
Rajshekhar Rao, Senior Counsel for the plaintiff, has placed on record actual screenshots from the various links, indicating that the plaintiff’s movie is circulating on the said links.
The bench ordered that Rohit Sharma, as well as all others acting on his behalf, shall stand restrained from copying, recording, reproducing, allowing recording, transmitting, communicating or making available for distribution, duplication, display or release, exhibiting or playing in any manner, any stills, audio/video clips, songs, recordings or other proprietary information relating to the cinematographic film “Jawan” or any part thereof without a proper licence from the Plaintiff, through any medium whatsoever.
The court further directed Rohit Sharma to take down from all his social media accounts including WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and Telegram or any other website accessed or operated by him, any content which infringes the copyright of the plaintiff including content relating to the film “Jawan”.
The bench ordered that compliance with Order XXXIX Rule 3 of the CPC be effected within a period of ten days from today.
