High Court of Karnataka on Friday ordered issue of notice to Congress party leaders Rahul Gandhi, Jairam Ramesh and Supriya Shrinate on a contempt of court petition for allegedly violating an undertaking given to the court that they would remove copyrighted songs of the film KGF Chapter 2 to promote the Bharat Jodo Yatra on their social media platforms.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Prasanna B. Varale and Justice Ashok S. Kinagi passed the order on a contempt petition filed by M/s MRT Music, which owns the copyright for songs in the film.
The undertaking
According to the petition, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi had on November 8 given an undertaking on behalf of the three Congress leaders that they “shall by noon tomorrow i.e., November 9, 2022, endeavour to remove alleged offending material from its Twitter handle and all other forms of social media, and has no intention whatsoever to use the same in future”.
Another division bench, in its November 8 order, had set aside an interim order passed by a commercial court, which had ordered for blocking the party’s Twitter handles apart from ordering electronic audit of the party’s social media platform to ascertain illegal use of copyrighted contents, on the condition that the three Congress leaders ensure removal of illegally used content from their social media platforms, the petitioner has pointed out.
The undertaking was given on behalf of the three leaders when Ms. Shrinate had filed an appeal before the High Court questioning November 7 interim order passed by the Commercial Court on the suit filed by MRT Music.
On social media platforms
Despite the undertaking, the copyrighted songs of the film were found on the party’s Twitter handle and Facebook page on November 20, the petitioner alleged. Beside, the party is allowing people to download the songs from its social media platforms, the petitioner has alleged.
Published - December 02, 2022 05:47 pm IST
