JUDGMENT

Altamas Kabir, J.-Leave granted.

2. The sole question for consideration in these appeals is whether on a complaint made to the Copyright Board under Section 31 of the Copyright Act, 1957, the said Board under Clause (b) of Sub-Section (1) can pass an interim order in the pending complaint. Since, we shall be dealing with the said section throughout this judgment, the same is extracted hereinbelow :

“31. Compulsory licence in works withheld from public.-

(1) If at any time during the term of copyright in any Indian work which has been published or performed in public, a complaint is made to the Copyright Board that the owner of copyright in the work-

(a) has refused to republish or allow the re-publication of the work or has refused to allow the performance in public of the work, and by reason of such refusal the work is withheld from the public; or

(b) has refused to allow communication to the public by [broadcast], of such work or in the case of a [sound recording] the work recorded in such [sound recording], on terms which the complainant considers reasonable, the Copyright Board, after giving to the owner of the copyright in the work a reasonable opportunity of being