Gaurav Garg vs Aly Morani & Ors.
2011 Latest Caselaw 872 Del

*              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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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