Karnataka HC Sets Aside Order Of Civil Court Directing Twitter To Suspend Handles of Congress and Bharat Jodo Yatra

The Division Bench of Justice G. Narendar and Justice P.N Desai of the Karnataka High Court on Tuesday evening set aside the order of the civil court which directed Twitter to suspend the Twitter handles of the Congress party and Bharat Jodo Yatra for using the music of KGF2 in the copyright infringement case.

Senior Advocate AM Singhvi appearing for Congress admitted that they used the KGF2's music and stated that the party will not use it any further. He argued that a democratic activity and the social media expression of a leading political party could not be paralyzed.

During the course of the hearing, the bench asked the counsel for the respondent, "How can you seek ex parte mandatory injunction?"

The court stated, "This is shutting them out and it is punitive."

The bench took note that there was no dispute that the KFG2's music had been used and synchronized with the Bharat Jodo Yatra campaign video. Therefore, the bench asked, "It has been admitted, where is the question of investigation?"

Senior Advocate Singhvi, thereafter, submitted that "without prejudice the appellant (congress party) shall by 12 noon tomorrow remove the allegedly offending material from its Twitter handle and all other forms of social media and has no intention whatsoever to use the same in the future."

In light of the same, the Court while setting aside the order of the Bengaluru civil court stated, "Prayer to set aside order is allowed subject to the appellant taking down material".

The Civil Court had ordered ex parte ad interim injunction against the defendants from unauthorizedly and illegally using the copyrighted work owned by the plaintiff (MRT Music) and illegally synchronizing, from distributing pirated copies of the same and also restrained from illegal uploading, storing, posting, communicating to the public, digitally transmitting the work held by the plaintiff till the next date.

The court had also directed Twitter to take down three tweets that were posted by the Congress Party’s handle @INCIndia. The court had further directed Twitter to block the Twitter handles of the Indian National Congress (@INCIndia) and Bharat Jodo (@BharatJodo) till the next date of hearing.

The civil court had stated that if the same was encouraged the plaintiff company which is in the business of acquiring cinematography films, songs, music albums, etc., will be put to “irreparable injury” and the same would also lead to encouraging the “piracy” at large.