Mumbai In a relief for Google India Pvt Ltd and three of the company’s executives, the Bombay high court (HC) on Wednesday restrained the MIDC police station from taking any coercive steps against the three executives, against whom an FIR has been registered for copyright violation based on a complaint lodged by filmmaker Suneel Darshan.
Darshan had moved a complaint before the additional chief metropolitan magistrate at Andheri after his 2017 film, Ek Haseena Thi Ek Deewana Tha, was uploaded on YouTube. Acting on his plea, the magistrate court had on December 20, 2021 issued an order to the MIDC police station to register an FIR. Pursuant to the order, on January 25, 2022, the MIDC Police registered an FIR under sections 51, 63 and 69 of the Copyright Act for alleged copyright infringement.
In April this year, Google India and the three executives – Pawan Agarwal, Chaitanya Prabhu and Namrata Rajkumar had moved high court for quashing of the magisterial order and the FIR.
Their counsel, senior advocate Amit Desai, pointed out that Google India had nothing to do with YouTube, the latter being a separate entity. He submitted that the Google India had no role to play in the ownership, operation, administration or functioning of the online video sharing and social media platform, and the company and the three executives named in the FIR had no connection with the uploading of the material on YouTube and ought not to be named in the complaint.
Desai claimed that the filmmaker had filed the complaint before the magistrate court suppressing the fact that he had initiated civil proceedings YouTube in high court and following complaints lodged by Darshan, YouTube had removed the URL/uploaded material.
Acting on the petition, the division bench of justice Revati Mohite Dere and justice Madhav Jamdar issued notice to the MIDC police and the filmmaker and posted the matter on October 10 for further hearing.
In the meantime, the court has restrained the MIDC police from taking any coercive steps against Google India or the three executives.