SC rejects Ilaiyaraaja’s plea for transfer of copyright case from Bombay HC to Madras HC
New Delhi(PTI): The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea of legendary music composer Ilaiyaraaja seeking to transfer a copyright dispute involving over 500 of his musical compositions from the Bombay High Court to the Madras High Court.
A bench comprising Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justices K Vinod Chandran and NV Anjaria did not agree to the submissions of senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for the musician, that the case be transferred to the Madras High Court.
At the outset, the counsel for Sony Music Entertainment told the bench that the case by the firm was filed in the Bombay High Court when no case was pending in the Madras High Court.
The plea is dismissed, the bench said.
The legal case started from a lawsuit initiated by Sony Music Entertainment India in 2022 before the Bombay High Court. Sony has sought an injunction to restrain Ilaiyaraaja Music N Management Pvt Ltd (IMMPL) from using 536 musical works.
The company claims it acquired the rights to these works through Oriental Records and Echo Recording, the entity with which Ilaiyaraaja has long been embroiled in litigation.
The IMMPL, however, alleged that 310 of the 536 disputed works are already under judicial scrutiny in a parallel case before the Madras High Court.
That case, originally filed by Ilaiyaraaja in 2014 against Echo Recording, challenges the latter’s claim over his compositions and seeks recognition of the composer’s moral and economic rights under the Copyright Act.
The 2014 Madras suit led to a significant 2019 judgment, which upheld Ilaiyaraaja’s moral and special rights as a composer.
Ilaiyaraaja is one of India’s most prolific composers with over 7,500 songs across 1,500 films.
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Indigo flights chaos: SCR to run special trains to clear passenger rush
Hyderabad (PTI): The South Central Railway on Saturday announced that it would run four special trains to manage the surge in passengers resulting from the large-scale cancellation of IndiGo flights here.
The move comes as flyers face significant disruption and long queues at the airport due to the cancellation.
A press release from the SCR said it is running the special trains to clear the extra rush of passengers to Chennai, Mumbai and Shalimar (Kolkata) from Hyderabad today.
Meanwhile, as many as 43 outbound Indigo flights were cancelled from here on Saturday, Rajiv Gandhi International Airport sources said.
ALSO READ: IndiGo cancels over 200 flights from Delhi, Mumbai on Saturday
Similarly, 26 incoming flights are also likely to be cancelled during the day, they said.
The flight cancellations drew ire from passengers, who thronged the IndiGo counters at the airport demanding to know the exact situation.
“This is utter nonsense! Digiyatra done, message received that departure has been rescheduled ahead of the scheduled departure and now upon arriving at Hyderabad airport coming to know at the security checkpoint that Indigo flight is cancelled,” Tarun Singha, former Ministry of Defence spokesperson said in a post on X.
“But the thing is if you don’t shout they do nothing. Example at Hyderabad Airport, there was no staff no flight information for an hour. Then a fellow passenger started shouting on mic and an Indigo staff appeared finally,” a netizen said in a post.
On Friday, when IndiGo cancelled over 1,000 flights from across airports, its CEO Pieter Elbers apologised in a video message for the major inconvenience caused to passengers due to the disruptions.
In the one-way video communication, Elbers also said that the airline was expecting fewer than 1,000 flights on Saturday.
