ORDER

Dr. Shameem Akther, J.—This Criminal Petition, under Section 482 of Cr.P.C., is filed by the petitioner-accused seeking to quash the proceedings in Crime No.46 of 2018 of Pet Basheerabad Police Station, Cyberabad, registered for the offences under Sections 403, 420 I.P.C. and Sections 69 and 63 r/w 65 of the Copyright Act, 1957.

2. Heard Sri Mummaneni Srinivasa Rao, learned counsel for the petitioner-accused, learned Public Prosecutor appearing for respondent No.1-State and Sri S. Niranjan Reddy, learned senior counsel representing Sri Thoom Srinivas, learned counsel for the 3rd respondent, apart from perusing the material available on record.

3. The learned counsel for the petitioner would submit that a false report is lodged by the 2nd respondent-de facto complainant who has no authority to do so. Basing on that, the impugned crime is registered and under investigation. As per the Copyright Act, the original owner has to give a complaint to the competent authority not to the police. The police has no power or authority to register the crime at the instance of the unauthorized person. The said fact is also proved based on the report dated 30.11.2015 submitted by the Deputy Superintendent of Police, Toopran Sub Division. As per the said report and the Act, any party aggrieved by any dispute in respect of broadcasting of cable network, ought to have filed complaint before the Telecom Distributor Settlement and Appellate Tribunal, New Delhi (TDSAT). As per Section 11 of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995, the competent authority is the Commissioner of Police. The de facto complainant is not the aggrieved person and the original owner of the network is Star India, so it cannot be looked into. The petitioner is running a cable network having licence granted by Star India and the licence is valid upto 30.06.2018. Ultimately, the petitioner prayed to quash the impugned proceedings.

4. The contentions made on behalf of the 3rd respondent are as follows:

The 3rd respondent is a broadcaster, whose broadcasting and reproduction rights are infringed by the petitioner. The 2nd respondent is the authorized representative of the 3rd respondent. The 2nd respondent filed criminal complaint against the petitioner in the subject crime and there is no infirmity in filing the criminal complaint by the 2nd respondent. As an abundant caution, the 3rd respondent filed an application in I.A. No.4 of 2018 to implead it in the Criminal Petition. It is contended that the Star India Private Limited is a company incorporated under the provisions of the Companies Act, 1956, and it has registered office in Mumbai. The 3rd respondent is engaged in the business of broadcasting satellite television channels of various genres. The 3rd respondent owns the right, title, interest, etc., including broadcasting and reproduction right for the Star pay channels. The 3rd respondent has the requisite licence to do so, obtained from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The business is being carried as per the Regulations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997. The petitioner-accused representing itself to be a Multi System Operator involved in the business of retransmission of signals of cable television channels through its network, approached the 3rd respondent-company seeking supply of Star pay channels for retransmitting them over its network and offered to pay the subscription fees to the 3rd respondent-company. The petitioner had fallen due huge amount. So a payment plan was given by the 3rd respondent to clear the outstanding amount pertaining to past period. The petitioner also executed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in September, 2017, for high definition channels, wherein the petitioner agreed to pay fixed licence fee of Rs.0.50 lakhs per month for high definition channels. As expressly mentioned in the agreement, the 3rd respondent agreed to grant the petitioner the Non-exclusive right to re-broadcast and r