The court confirmed that copyright protection extends to expression forms, not ideas, and prima facie establishment of similarity warrants injunction relief.

1. This appeal is directed against an ad interim order of injunction dated June 29, 2017 passed by the learned District Judge, South 24 - Parganas, Alipore in connection with a petition filed under Order XXXIX R.1 and R.2 of the Code of Civil Procedure in Title Suit bearing No.8 of 2017. By virtue of the order impugned, the defendant / appellant has been restrained from releasing the film "Hindi Medium" in any other format or electronic form including CDs, DVDs, Television / Internet or extraterrestrial rights till July 28, 2017. The date for service return and appearance of the above application for injunction is fixed on July 28, 2017.

2. According to the plaintiffs / respondents, the plaintiffs produced a Bengali Film "Ramdhanu" which was released in the year 2014. According to plaintiffs / respondents, the above film had a unique story line, strong characterization, plot and situation and had given a distinct identity. The above film was exhibited worldwide and the works were protected under national and international laws, treaties and conventions including the International Copyright Order, 1991, the Home Convention and Universal Copyright Convention.

3. According to the plaintiffs / respondents, the appellant was the producer of one Hindi cinema "Hindi Medium". It was alleged by the plaintiffs / respondents that the purported story line and screenplay of the said film were exactly similar to the story line of "Ramdhanu". It was further alleged by them that the film "Hindi Medium" was a massive adaptation and substantial re - production of the story line of "Ramdhanu" and in many cases the screenshots were also similar.

4. After considering the submissions made before the learned Court below by the plaintiffs / respondents as also after prima facie perusal of annexures B, C, D and E to the plaint, the learned Court below passed the impugned order. The learned Court below was of the prima facie opinion that the screenshots and posting in print and electronic media were almost similar and barring the concluding parts of the two films, the other story line of both the films were prima facie found similar.

5. It is submitted by Mr. S. K. Kapoor, learned Senior Advocate appearing on behalf of the appellant / defendants that there can be no copyright in an idea, subject matter, themes, plots or historical or legendary facts. It is submitted by him that, according to the settled principles of law, violation of the copyright is confined in the form, manner and arrangement and expression of the idea by the author of the copyrighted work. It is further submitted by him, that, according to the settled principles of law, one of the surest and safest test to determine whether or not there has been a violation of copyright is to see if the reader, spectator or the viewer after having read or seen both the works is clearly of the opinion and gets and unmistakable impression that the subsequent works appears to be a copy of the original.

6. It is submitted by Mr. Kapoor that the plaintiffs / respondents approached the Court after 40 days of release of the film "Hindi Medium". It is submitted by him, that global right of the above film has already been given and only the satellite rights are about to be launched.

7. It is also submitted by Mr. Kapoor that the learned Court below passed the ex parte ad interim order of injunction for the period mentioned hereinabove after considering the annexures B, C, D and E which do not contain either the full story or entire screenshots of the film "Hindi Medium" and as a result, the aforesaid m