* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
+ CCP (O) 73/2010 in CS(OS) NO. 766/2007
Date of Decision : 14.02.2011
GAURAV GARG ......Petitioner
Through: Mr. Abhishek Malhotra &
Mr. Nitin Bhatia, Advs.
Versus
ALY MORANI & ORS. ...... Respondents
Through: Mr. Anil Sapra, Sr. Adv.
with Mr. Vikas Pahwa, Adv.
CORAM :
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE V.K. SHALI
1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? NO
2. To be referred to the Reporter or not ? NO
3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest ? NO V.K. SHALI, J. (Oral )
1. This is a contempt petition filed by the petitioners under Section 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 against Aly Morani, Mohomed Morani of Clineyug Films Pvt. Ltd. It may be pertinent here to mention that Mohomed Morani has been shown as defendant no. 2 as well as the defendant no. 3 as the official of M/s Clineyug Films Pvt. Ltd.
2. Briefly stated the facts of the present case are that the petitioners had filed a suit for permanent injunction to restrain the defendants from infringing plaintiff special right as author. It is alleged that the plaintiff as an employee of M/s Cineyug Films Pvt. Ltd. has been associated with the development of IPL CCP (O) 73/2010 in CS(OS) NO. 766/2007 Page 1 of 7 Awards event in which the respondents did not acknowledge the contributions of the petitioner although he had contributed to the same. It may be pertinent here to mention that the petitioner was not claiming any copyright in the said development of the IPL Award under Section 57 of the Copyright Act to sustain but the suit was filed in respect of his plea of contributing to the IPL Award. The respondent no. 3 filed its written statement and the application under Order XXXIX Rules 1 and 2 CPC which was heard on 21.05.2010. It is alleged that the defendant nos. 1 to 3, on a specific query by the Court made a statement that no employee, including the Directors of the defendant no. 3 i.e. defendant nos. 1 and 2 are going to be accorded any credit for the event in any form, including by way of credit scroll appearing at the end of the broadcast of the programme. It is stated that a specific statement in this regard was made by the learned counsel for the defendant no. 3 before the Court. It is now alleged that during the broadcast of the event on 23.05.2010, the plaintiff was shocked to see that credit scroll at the end of the programme broadcast carried due credit to number of individuals almost about 27 people, and therefore, it is alleged that the defendants have committed the contempt of Court by making such a statement. To facilitate reference, the relevant averments made in the contempt petition are as under:
"Para 6. During the hearing of the aforesaid applications before this Hon'ble Court on May 21, 2010, the defendant nos. 1, 2 and 3 on a specific directed query from this Hon'ble Court, made a statement that no employee, including the Directors of the defendant no. 3, i.e., defendant nos. 1 and 2, are going to be accorded any credit for the event in any form, including by way of credit scroll CCP (O) 73/2010 in CS(OS) NO. 766/2007 Page 2 of 7 appearing at the end of the broadcast of the programme. A specific statement was made that only the defendant no. 3 company is going to be accorded credit for the event/programme Para 7. It was based on the said statement as also on the basis of other reasons in order dated May 21, 2010, that this Hon'ble Court was pleased to dismiss plaintiff's application for interim injunction being I.A. No. 5900 of 2010.
Para 8. That during the broadcast of the even on May 23, 2010, the plaintiff was shocked to see that credit scroll at the end of the programme broadcast carried due credit to the following individuals, among others;
1. Aly Morani, Scripted & Directed by
2. Shirin Morani, Artist Manager
3. Prachi Parab, Associate Events & PR
4. Arvind Singh, Costume Manager
5. Karim Morani, Scripted & Directed by
6. Puneet Rege, Logistics head
7. Raju Ghare, Hospitality Manager
8. Elaine Fernandes, Senior Executive
9. Mohomed Morani, Scripted & Directed by
10. Alpa Mehta, Creative Head
11. Anand Dawda, Production Head
12. Priyanka Soorma, Project Head
13. Meetali Majethia, Creative Associate
14. Neelam Soorma, Scripted & Directed by
15. Manoj Batham, Production Executives
16. Deepak Mishra, Production Executives
17. Dilip, Production Executives
18. Mazhar Nadiawala, Scripted & Directed by
19. Vishal Parekh, Production Manager
20. Kunal Taparia, Senior Executive
21. Flona D'Souza, Senior Executive
22. Gargi Pawar, Senior Executive CCP (O) 73/2010 in CS(OS) NO. 766/2007 Page 3 of 7
23. Salim Shaikh, Production Executives
24. Shetal Modi, Audio Visuals by
25. Deepak Rajodia, Production Executives
26. Mitesh Kurani, Group CFO
27. Farooque Shaikh, Production Executives A CD carrying the recording of the event including the credit scroll at the end of the event is filed in the present proceedings as Annexure-A.
Para 9. The plaintiff immediately verified the said names with the list of employees of defendant no. 3 that was sent to the plaintiff's colleague in August, 2009. The plaintiff was further shocked when the verification resulted in the conclusion that the said list of 27 individuals included defendant nos. 1 and 2 and that the others are employees of defendant no. 3. A copy of the said e-mail dated August 5, 2009 along with the list of employees sent to the plaintiff's associate is filed along with this application as Annexure-B.
Para 10. It is also noteworthy that the defendants have a practice of giving credit to professionals, consultants, vendors, agents and other persons involved with an event that the said defendants organize, including their employees having worked on the said event. This is evidenced from the recordings of other events carried out by the defendants i.e. Star Screen Award and Zee Cine Awards, respectively, which are filed along with this application as Annexure- C".
3. On the basis of the aforesaid averments, the petitioners want contempt proceedings to be initiated and further seeks a direction to the defendant nos. 1 and 3 to pay a sum of Rs.50,000/- to the petitioners by way of exemplary damages for their egregious misconduct and also publish statement of apology for their conduct in leading newspapers like Times of India, Dainik Jagran and Dainik Bhaskar.
CCP (O) 73/2010 in CS(OS) NO. 766/2007 Page 4 of 7
4. Reply to the contempt petition contesting the claim of the petitioners has been filed. Thereafter the plaintiff has also filed the rejoinder.
5. The Court is purposely not referring to the stand of the respondents or the averments made in the rejoinder as it does not feel necessity of the same at the threshold when the case is to be considered as to whether the contempt notice which has been issued must culminate into issuance of formal notice as to why the contempt may not be initiated against the respondents or as to whether the notice purported to have been issued calling for their response, deserves to be discharged.
6. I have heard the learned counsel for the petitioners as well as Mr. Anil Sapra, the learned senior counsel for the respondents and have also gone through the averments made in the application as well as the order passed by the Court.
7. The learned counsel for the petitioners has vehemently contended that the respondent's counsel has misled the Court by making a statement that no credit scroll was displayed at the end of the IPL Award event acknowledging the contribution of different persons while as factually this statement of the learned counsel has been found to be incorrect. This is stated to be so because the petitioner is claiming himself to be a person associated with the development of concept of IPL Award event in which he had moral legitimate rights, although he may not have copyright, which deserve to be protected under Section 57 of the Copyright Act and therefore a 'civil contempt' prima facie against the defendants is made out.
CCP (O) 73/2010 in CS(OS) NO. 766/2007 Page 5 of 7
8. I have carefully considered the submissions of the learned counsel that Section 2(b) of the contempt of Court Act defines the 'civil contempt' as under:
"Civil contempt means willful disobedience to to any judgment, decree, direction order, writ or other process of a court or willful breach of an undertaking given to a Court"
9. A perusal of the aforesaid definition of the civil contempt clearly shows that before initiation of any civil contempt action, there must be willful disobedience of Court order, judgment, decree, direction etc. While as in the instant case, there is no order, direction, decree, judgment of which the violation is alleged to be committed by the respondents. The other aspect of the matter is that if there is an undertaking given to the Court which is accepted and that undertaking is violated and it is shown that the said violation is willful then also contempt is made out.
10. In the instant case, there is no such order passed by the Court nor any such statement recorded much less an undertaking, which can be made basis for initiating of this action. There is absolutely no question of violation of the said undertaking by the respondents as none has been given.
11. What is being alleged by the plaintiff are oral statements to the Court and which do not form part of the record. In the absence of their being anything in writing by way of an undertaking or an order or a direction it is not open to initiate an action for contempt against the respondents. In my considered view, it will be a gross abuse of processes of law. Further, it is not every disobedience, which tantamount to civil contempt. A disobedience must be willful, deliberate and contumacious CCP (O) 73/2010 in CS(OS) NO. 766/2007 Page 6 of 7 which has been done with a view to lower the dignity of the Court whereupon the Court will step in to protect his Majesty. In the instant case, the question of there being a disobedience much less the same being wilful does not arise because there was no judgment, order, decree, direction or an undertaking having been given by the respondents much less the same being disobeyed.
12. For the reasons mentioned above, I am of the considered view that prima facie no case of contempt is made out against the respondents, and therefore, the notices issued are discharged.
V.K. SHALI, J.
FEBRUARY 14, 2011 KP CCP (O) 73/2010 in CS(OS) NO. 766/2007 Page 7 of 7