JUDGMENT

ANISH DAYAL, J.

I.A. 78/2023 (Application under Order XIIIA of CPC)

1. This application has been filed by plaintiff under Order XIIIA of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (“CPC”) seeking summary judgment in favour of plaintiff and against the defendant.

2. The issue being considered for the purpose of this application is whether a sanyasi (renunciate) is entitled to own copyright in literary works of his creation. The factual context is as under:

Background Facts

2.1 The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust India (“plaintiff Trust/plaintiff”) is a public charitable trust registered under the Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950. It is engaged in printing, publishing and distributing books, writings and speeches of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (“Srila Prabhupada”), who is the author/settlor of the plaintiff Trust.

2.2 Srila Prabhupada was a scholar, philosopher, spiritual teacher, prolific author, and exponent of Vedic literature. It is claimed that he relinquished his worldly possessions and became a sanyasi in the year 1959 and set out to America in 1965. He went on to establish the ‘International Society for Krishna Consciousness’ (“ISKCON”).

2.3 ISKCON was registered in the year 1971 in Bombay under the Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950. Through his lifetime, Srila Prabhupada delivered thousands of lectures, wrote innumerable letters and books of his teachings, essentially being translations and explanations of ancient Vedic texts as well as that of the Bhagavad Gita. These books were used as the primary medium to propagate ISKCON, which eventually became a world-wide movement.

2.4 Plaintiff Trust was established by a deed of trust dated 30th March, 1972 by Srila Prabhupada, as the settlor of the plaintiff Trust (“the trust deed”). It was registered with the Charity Commissioner (Regn. No. E-5032), and Srila Prabhupada was also one of the first three trustees of the Trust. The recitals of the trust deed state that the settlor was entitled to copyright and rights in his writings; and as per Clause 1, he assigned unto the trustees the publication rights in the said writings; and the trustees acknowledged, in Clause 2, that they held the said rights (copyrights and publication rights of his writings) as trust property, in consonance with the objectives of the trust (delineated in Clause

4).

2.5 Vide deed of confirmation dated 15th January, 1975, the settlor (Srila Prabhupada) ratified the contents of the trust deed, and the copyright in the works authored by him stood assigned to the plaintiff Trust.

2.6 Srila Prabhupada passed on in November 1977. The plaintiff Trust went on to edit and format his manuscripts, writings and speeches, and published them as books. The books published by the plaintiff Trust include over 70 volumes based on the writings of Srila Prabhupada. These publications achieved huge renown and success, particularly in its reach across the world, and several hundred versions of the translations of the same are currently being disseminated.

2.7 During an anti-piracy sweep, as claimed by plaintiff, carried out on the internet in December 2020, it transpired that certain websites, such as, that of the defendant, www.friendwithbooks.co, were carrying complete copies of some of the books in which copyright vests in the plaintiff Trust. Not having authorised any third party, including the defendant, to reproduce the books, store them in an electronic format, communicate them to the public, or create sound recordings, plaintiff filed the instant suit seeking a decree of permanent injunction restraining defendant from infringing their copyright under Section

14(a) of the Copyright Act, 1957.

3. The books found on the impugned website have been tabulated by plaintiff as under: