L. NARASIMHA REDDY, J.

( 1 ) THESE two appeals are filed against the order dated 10-2-2004 passed by the learned Chief judge, City Civil Court, Hyderabad, in l. A. No. 4069 of 2003 in O. S. No. 392 of 2003. C. M. A. No. 1239 of 2004 is filed by defendant No. l and C. M. A. No. l 133 of 2004 is filed by Defendant No. 3 in the suit. For the sake of convenience, the parties are referred to as arrayed in the suit.

( 2 ) PLAINTIFFS 1 to 4 are engaged in the business and activity of production, distribution and exhibition of cinematography films in various languages in the country. They filed O. S. No. 392 of 2003 for the relief of declaration that Defendants 1 to 4, have no manner of right, title or interest in the copy rights in respect of as many as 16 films, mentioned in the schedule (hereinafter referred to as "the Films"), and for a consequential decree of perpetual injunction against Defendants 1 to 4, from telecasting the said films, or dealing with, in any manner, and from interfering with the enjoyment of the copy rights by the plaintiffs.

( 3 ) BROADLY stated the case of the plaintiffs is, that after producing the films, they negotiated with Defendant No. 4 for assignment of copyrights for telecasting the films on cable network for a consideration of Rs. 35 lakhs in the year 1994. The 4th defendant is said to have nominated defendants 5 to 8 for assignment of the same rights for a period of nine years with effect from 23-12-1994, duly adjusting the consideration paid by it. Plaintiffs alleged that they did not assign the copyrights in favour of the Respondents 1 to 3, and despite the same, they have been telecasting the said films. On the same contentions, plaintiffs filed two interlocutory applications under order 39, Rule 1 C. P. C. One application is filed for restraining the defendants from issuing notices or advertisements to any medium, claiming copyrights, and the other is filed for restraining the defendants from exercising copyrights or telecasting the films.

( 4 ) THE plea of Defendants 1 to 3 was common. According to them, the plaintiffs assigned the copyrights of the films in favour of Defendant No. 4, through an agreement dated 10-10-1994 for a consideration of rs. 35 lakhs, and Defendant No. 4 in turn, assigned the rights in favour of Defendant no. 3, within one week thereafter i. e. , 17-10- 1994, for a consideration of Rs. 60 lakhs. They claim that through an agreement dated 16-3-1997, Defendant No. 3 assigned rights in respect of the said films, together with several other films, in favour of Defendant no. 2, and thereafter, through an agreement dated 21-3-1997 and 20-4-1999 the 1st defendant acquired rights for the films. They repeated their contentions in their counter affidavits filed, opposing the interlocutory applications, and supplemented through some documents.

( 5 ) INITIALLY, the Trial Court granted ex parte ad interim injunctions. After service of notice and on hearing the parties, the trial Court made the ad interim injunction, restraining the Defendants 1 to 4 from telecasting the films or exercising the copyrights, absolute, through the order under appeal.

( 6 ) SRI C. Kodandaram and Sri J. Prabhakar, learned Counsel for Defendants 1 and 2, respectively, submit that the Trial court did not follow the procedure prescribed by law in passing the order under appeal, be it, as regards referring to the contentions, documentary evidence placed before it, or furnishing the index of evidence. They contend that not a single provision of the copyright Act, which has an important bearing on the issue, was referred to. The learned Counsel also urged that though it has emerged on record that the Defendants 1 and 2 have been exercising their rights of exhibiting the films for the past 8 years, by continuously telecasting the films, the trial court did not take the same into account either in the context of prima facie case or balance of convenience. They complain that the principles governing for grant of t

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