The Madras High Court has quashed a criminal prosecution launched against Echo Recording Company on the basis of a complaint lodged by musician Ilaiyaraaja in 2010 alleging copyright violation and failure to pay royalty to him for selling the songs composed by him for various movies.
Justice M.V. Muralidaran agreed with Krishna Ravindran, counsel for the recording company, that the musician ought not to have initiated criminal proceedings when several civil suits were pending in the High Court in connection with the copyright claimed by Mr. Ilaiyaraaja for the songs composed by him.
Civil suits
The judge said the appropriate remedy for the musician would be to pursue the civil suits and establish his claim of being the copyright holder of his songs. He added that a litigant could not be allowed to pursue both civil as well as criminal proceedings on issues that were intertwined and inseparable.
“The incorporation of inherent power of the High Court under Section 482 Code of Criminal Procedure is meant... to secure the ends of justice where the process is abused or misused, where the ends of justice cannot be secured or where the process of law is used for unjust or unlawful object.
“Therefore, the criminal proceedings set in motion by virtue of a private complaint converted into FIR on the file of the respondent police (Central Crime Branch) cannot be permitted to continue. Accordingly, the petition is allowed and the FIR is hereby quashed,” the judge observed in his order.
In his quash petition pending in the court since 2010, the director of Echo Recording Company P. Rajasekar said the musician had lodged the complaint against the company on March 19, 2010 and the FIR was booked on April 5, 2010 under Section 418 (cheating) of Indian Penal Code and the provisions of the Copyright Act of 1957.
Subsequently, around 20,000 compact discs were seized by the police, he claimed.
Published - October 31, 2018 01:10 am IST
