To establish an offence under Section 420 IPC, there must be proof of deception and dishonest inducement, which were not present in this case; however, the complaint under Section 63 of the Copyright Act was upheld.

COMMON ORDER:

Crl.P. No.2599 of 2019 is filed by the petitioners-A1 to A3 under Section 482 Cr.P.C. to quash the charge sheet filed in CC No.4117 of 2018 on the file of the IV Additional Junior Civil Judge cum XII Additional Metropolitan Magistrate, Cyberabad at Kukatpally, including the cognizance order dated 27.10.2018.

2. Crl.P. No.2618 of 2019 is filed by the petitioners-A4 & A5 under Section 482 Cr.P.C. to quash the charge sheet filed in CC No.4117 of 2018 on the file of the IV Additional Junior Civil Judge cum XII Additional Metropolitan Magistrate, Cyberabad at Kukatpally, including the cognizance order dated 27.10.2018.

3. The facts of the case leading to filing of the present criminal petitions are that the complainant was a writer. She had written several novels and short stories in Telugu that were published in various Telugu Magazines and by reputed publishing houses. She had written a novel, by name, “Na Manasu Korindi Ninne” in the year 2006. The same was published in the month of August, 2010 by Sahithi publishers. In the meanwhile, she had given the manuscript to various producers in the film industry in the year 2006 and 2007 to look into the possibility of making a movie out of it. However, she failed to succeed in the same. After publishing the novel “Na Manasu Korindi Ninne” in August, 2010, she moved to USA for some time and returned in November, 2012. In the year 2013, while she was watching the movie “Mr. Perfect” telecasted in a TV Channel, she observed that the said movie was a complete copy from her novel “Na Manasu Korindi Ninne”. Many of the incidents and dialogues in the said movie were also copied from her novel. The said movie was produced by M/s. Sri Venkateswara Creations. Mr. Venkata Ramana Reddy @ Dil Raju (A1) was the producer of the movie, Mr. V. Anantha Venkata Narasimha Reddy @ Sri Sirish (A2) and Mr. S. Laxman Rao (A3) were Co-producers. It was mentioned in the titles that the basic story was by Sri Venkateswara Creations. Story and Direction by Sri Kondapalli Dasarath (A4) and dialogues by dialogue writer Mr. Abburi Ravi (A5). She lodged a private complaint against the above said persons contending that her entire novel “Na Manasu Korindi Ninne” including main theme, expressions, many incidents, dialogues were copied by the accused without her permission and produced “Mr. Perfect” movie and cheated her and general public by violating her copy rights.

3.1. Her further contention was that she gave her novel to a couple of producers on trust that the movie would be produced and that she would be rewarded as author. The movie “Mr. Perfect” in Telugu was released on 22.04.2011, eight months after the publication of her novel “Na Manasu Korindi Ninne” in the month of August 2010. Mr. Perfect Telugu movie was successful in India. It got huge earnings as per various website sources including theater collections, satellite rights, overseas collection and audio rights. Mr. Perfect movie rights were sold in Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi languages and remake rights were sold to Kannada and Bengali producers. Remake rights for Hindi were sold to producer Sri Sajid Nadiyawala and that the complainant had information that the film was going to be produced by him soon in Hindi. She immediately sent legal notices to the said accused regarding the matter. The said legal notices did not have any impact on them. The producer and co-producers were continuing to be commercially gaining on her novel illegally. The accused were continuing infringement activities by assigning remaking rights and infringing her rights continuously by making the movie available on Online stream websites in Telugu, YouTube and were continuing to generate revenues from Ads from millions of views. She tried to approach the accused with a request to stop illegal activity and recognize her as the author of the story of Mr. Perfect movie for which they threate