A juristic entity cannot claim moral rights under the Copyright Act regarding employee contributions as authors; such claims cannot be represented absent commonality of interest with the employees.

1. The Interim Application (L) No.15925 of 2023 was filed on 14th June, 2023 and had been moved before this Court on 15th June, 2023. By order dated 15th June, 2023, this Court had noted that the subject film “Adipurush” is being released in the theater on 16th June, 2023. Paragraph 3 of the said order is relevant to produce, which reads as under :

“Mr. Ashish Kamat, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the Defendant has raised preliminary issue of maintainability of the Suit. He states that the Applicant/Plaintiff has been given credit for character assets in the subject film and has tendered snap shot of the credits which is taken on record and marked ‘X’ for identification. It appears from the snap shot that the Plaintiff has been given credit under character assets. Thus, the grievance insofar as the Plaintiff regarding not being given credit in the subject film appears to be addressed.”

The Applicant/Plaintiff in the aforementioned Interim Application had applied for ad-interim relief including inter alia in Prayer Clause ‘a’, as follows :

“That the Plaintiffs/Applicants be given Credit in the film “Adipurush” to all the employees/agents and contract workers who had worked in the project for all the assets, layout, animation, compositing and such other supporting employees as part of the production of the film.”

2. There were other prayers including prayer for restraining the Defendants from releasing “Adipurush” (“subject film”) in theaters or on any OTT Platform or Online or any other film / television series incorporating the works authored by the Plaintiffs, by themselves or their employees or agents without giving due credits to the Plaintiffs or their employees or agents in the said film so as to infringe the Plaintiff’s moral rights in the works contained in Exhibit- A of the Plaint. It is not necessary to refer to the other prayers as on 15th June, 2023 when the aforementioned Interim Application had come up, Dr. Abhinav Chandrachud, learned Counsel appearing for the Applicant/Plaintiff had submitted that at this stage no ad-interim relief is being sought for in respect of the prayers other than giving of credit to the Applicant/Plaintiff. He had submitted that the Applicant/Plaintiff is not intending to prevent the release of the subject film, which was scheduled for release on the next day.

Further, he had submitted that he would press for further ad-interim relief after opportunity was given to the Defendants to file their Affidavit-in-Reply to the Interim Application.

3. Considering that Super Cassettes Industries Private Limited had not been joined though the Company is a co-Producer of the subject film, Dr. Abhinav Chandrachud has sought leave to amend the Plaint and Interim Application for joining Super Cassettes Industries Private Limited. Leave was accordingly granted and permission to carry out the amendment was also granted. Further directions were issued for the completion of pleadings i.e. filing of the Affidavit-in-Reply and Rejoinder.

4. It is relevant to note the circumstances in which Paragraph 3 of the said order dated 15th June, 2023 extracted above came to be passed. The learned Senior Counsel appearing for the Defendant on that day had raised a preliminary issue of maintainability of the Suit. In view of the subject film releasing the next day, the learned Senior Counsel for the Defendants, had stated that the Applicant/Pl