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Ansal's plea alleged that the portrayal of Sushil Ansal in the trailer and teaser of the "Trial by Fire" series has caused and has the propensity to cause further immense and irreparable harm to Ansal's reputation and his right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.
The Delhi High Court on Thursday rejected a plea filed by Sushil Ansal, Chairman of the Ansal API Group, seeking a stay on the release of the Netflix Series titled "Trial by Fire- The tragic tale of the Uphaar Tragedy", a series based on the 1997 Uphaar Cinema tragedy.
The bench of Justice Yashwant Varma was dealing with a plea against the Netflix series which is set to be released on January 13. The plea alleged that "the official teaser/trailer for the series showed direct references to Sushil Ansal and the dramatized role of Ansal in the said incident and its aftermath".
The plea claimed that the portrayal of Ansal in the "Trial by Fire" series trailer and the teaser had caused and will continue to cause immense and irreparable harm to Ansal's reputation and right to life under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.
The single-judge bench, however, held that it is necessary to bear in mind that the work on which the web series is based has been penned by parents who had lost teenage children in the unfortunate incident. It is a story that "alleges a systemic failure" and manifests a cry of anguish against the manner in which the incident was prosecuted and tried; it essentially represents their perspective and opinion, the order stated.
"It essentially represents their perspective and opinion. A fictional rendition of their trials and tribulations cannot, prima facie, be presumed to be defamatory. More fundamentally, their personal experience and perception of the incident or the culpability of the plaintiff would remain their belief, impression, and understanding of the entire episode," the bench opined.
The bench stated that ultimately, it would be up to a reasonably informed individual acting on current standards to form an opinion. “In any case, the Court is unconvinced that the narrative penned by defendants Nos. 4 and 5 could be described as wholly fantastical or devoid of any semblance of the truth as conceived”, it added.
Noting that Sushil Ansal did not take any pre-emptive step at the first available opportunity, the single-judge bench stated that there exists no justification to grant ad-interim relief to him even after he failed to take appropriate steps for injunctive reliefs in respect of the Book authored and published in 2016.
“A grant of the injunction at an ad interim or ex parte stage must necessarily be weighed bearing in mind whether the plaintiff has chosen to approach the Court for relief with due promptitude. The case of the plaintiff woefully fails on this score”, the bench added.
Conclusively, the bench stated that the narrative of the authors was available in the public sphere right from 2016 and this clearly disentitled the plaintiff from the grant of ad interim reliefs. Thus, the court dismissed the application seeking an ad-interim injunction.
Case Title: Sushil Ansal v. Endemol India Pvt. Ltd. & Ors.
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